Red Notice

Bill Browder tells a compelling story but manages to not come off as a sympathetic character. He was making money hand over fist on the backs of Russians and doesn’t seem to see any inconsistency. He never mentions doing anything to give back to the Russian people. Chapter upon chapter goes on and on about him and comes across as narcissistic and gets in the way of the story. His play by play of getting the Magnitsky Act passed was more about Bill Browder than about getting justice for his auditor (he calls him his attorney). Bill Browder never made any efforts to learn Russian, to learn the culture or to have any understanding of the people who worked for him. If he had, he would have realized that a suggestion that Magnitsky just pick up and leave Russia was out of the question for him.

Several sections come across as disingenuous. For example, he criticizes his first wife for planning an incredibly expensive vacation and then brags about an expensive vacation that he takes with his second wife. He fakes humility at the hearings for the Magnitsky Act, but brags about his meetings with Senators and the talks he is invited to give. He repeatedly talks about how his talks and speeches were the only ones that could make certain audiences cry. It seems far-fetched for him to call himself a human rights activist. He took up on one cause for his auditor, Magnitsky. What are his other great acts of human rights activism? I really don’t see any. He states late in the book that he has no culpability in the death of Magnitsky. On the one hand, that is completely true. The Russian guards denied medical care and beat Magnitsky to death. However, it is Browder who thought he could reveal corruption in Russia while in Russia and remain untouched. His arrogance and disregard for culture and political realities made him a less than sympathetic person. His descriptions of people’s body shapes and voice tones are also a distraction and unnecessary, much like his description of dating his second wife. It gave a window into his character. He talked about dating her the way someone describes a sporting event using words like win and conquer. He went out of his way to write about how beautiful she was and how other men wanted her but he won her, making her sound like a prize instead of a human. He attempts to sound like he cares for the Russian orphans that now cannot be adopted by US citizens, but it sounded more like a passing thought. If he is a human rights activist, what is he doing for the orphans, especially since the ceasing of adoptions was a direct retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.

There are no doubts that Magnitsky was unjustly killed in a Russian prison by Russian officials. Unfortunately, the way Bill Browder wrote the book leaves the reader thinking about Bill Browder and not about the corrupt Russian government and its impact on our country.

All of these qualities of Bill Browder and the style of his writing where he repeatedly portrays himself as a magnificent human rights activist were a complete turnoff.

Red Notice reads like a thriller but is a non-fiction account of corruption in Putin’s Russia. Bill Browder is an American businessman whose grandfather was general secretary of the American Communist Party. However, he went to Russia to be a capitalist. He made a fortune for his investors by exposing corruption in the Russian markets. However, then the Russians came for him. Before the Russians shut him down, he got his fund’s assets out of Russia as well as its employees. Then they came after his lawyers. Two successfully escaped Russia, but one, Sergei Magnitsky, refused to be bullied. He was arrested, tortured and died in prison. Browder then devoted his life to getting justice for Magnitsky and humiliating Putin. He managed to hit the Russian oligarchs who keep Putin in power by getting the U.S. Congress (and later the European Parliament) to pass the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act freezes the foreign assets of Russians who were involved in the death of Sergei. The bad guy in the story is Putin but a dishonorable mention goes to Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who fought to derail the Magnitsky Act to avoid upsetting their Russian reset.

The book is written with remarkable clarity and deftly explains difficult subject matter. It is extremely timely as it provides the backdrop for the meeting that Donald Trump, Jr. held with a Russian lawyer who wanted to discuss lifting the Magnitsky sanctions.

This is a well written book. Audible version is quite good as well – excellent narrator. W/ respect to the subject matter, however, I am of the mind, “we reap what we sow”. Browder casts himself as a sympathetic character. I disagree. He is @ ground zero – part of the problem. He is part of the core problem which culminated in the death of Magnitsky.

Of course, what happened to Magnitsky was abhorrent. I agree as well that sanctions against corrupt state operators, kleptocrats, banksters, etc who rob their country blind, pillage public coffers, etc should be enacted & enforced. What I also believe is the SAME actions should be taken against HEDGE FUND OPERATORS whose actions are equally or even more egregious. At the VERY least, they are complicit in the pain & suffering people endure as a result of their actions.

What happened to Magnitsky pales by orders of magnitude compared to the devastating and irreversible long-term effects of the unfettered, rogue capitalism w/in which Browder became a wealthy man. He did so by making a vocation of predatory profiteering – pillaging & picking the bones of stressed, failing or failed states. While not illegal, how he made/makes his fortune is amoral.

Right now, as I write this review, Puerto Rico has been DEVASTATED by Hurricane Maria. There is NO Electricity on the ENTIRE island and the PRIVATIZED electric company REFUSES to restore electricity. Why? Because hedge fund operators preyed on Puerto Rico – left the ppl & the state even more impoverished and, now, in perpetual peonage. Essential public services (e.g. power & water) infrastructure were sold off / “privatized” (turned into for-profit operations) @ bargain basement prices to pay toward their debt. The authority of the island’s mayor was usurped. Puerto Ricos finances are now CONTROLLED by a board of predatory banksters who will ensure Puerto Rico remains in perpetual peonage to them. Ppl have & will continue to die as a direct result of the unconscionable profiteering by hedge fund operations.

This is not an isolated incident. This rapacious behavior by rogue capitalist operations like hedge fund management companies is sweeping the globe. Decimating countries – often leaving autocratic, tyrannous governments in their wake. Hedge fund profiteers wash their hands of culpability for the fallout from their actions as they belly up to the trough & fatten themselves off unimaginable misery. So, when one of them falls, the irony of the wildly disproportionate ratio of their fallen to those whom they rescued (profiteered off of) is not lost on me..

This book can be read on several levels.

First, it flows like a well-written political thriller but, unfortunately, it is fact, not fiction. That said, if ever Bill Browder gets bored with asset management he would surely be able to make a living writing thrillers like this. He’s a natural. He has the knack of reducing sometimes arcane and abstruse business language and legal procedures to an easily understandable narrative.

Secondly, his story is a timely warning to those who wish to work/invest in Russia. It is clear that despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, old habits die hard. Stalin’s chief prosecutor is reputed to have said in the 1930s that he would consign the rule of law to the dustbin of history. He did, and that philosophy effectively still endures today. Far from being independent of the Executive, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies are its handmaidens. The horrifying events surrounding the interrogation of the author’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, and his eventual death in custody, testify to the scant regard that some of Russia’s institutions have for due process.

Mr Browder is a brave man, perhaps to the point of recklessness; recklessly endangering his own life.

Thirdly, and importantly (without wishing to belittle Sergey Magnitsky’s barbaric treatment), it is a contemporaneous record of what is happening on the front line to anybody who crosses the power elite in Russia; from illegal tax assessments and unlawful share dilutions to the employment of “white noise” jamming techniques in meetings – not forgetting Litvinenko’s polonium poisoning (in the UK), allegedly by the FSB.

Mr Browder’s experiences are just as seminal as the views of those who have spent their lives studying the topic from afar, never having set foot on Russian soil. There is no substitute for the harsh realities of practical experience.

Furthermore, being a writer myself on Russian affairs and culture (both of fact and fiction), I can empathise with his experiences. I, too, lived and worked on the front line in the USSR/Russia in the late 1980s/90s not as a business investor, but as a lawyer trying to help bring some order to a disintegrating communist empire. And, again, like the author, I have met many Russian individuals whom I admire, respect and love, and who just want to live in harmony with the rest of us. Russian government institutions, on the other hand are, as Churchill said of the USSR generally: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

This book is a must read, not only by those proposing to invest in Russia, but also by anybody interested in international relations with the country, which at the moment are testy to say the least. If both East and West took more time to try to understand the other side’s position, and not judge each other by their own standards, I am sure that the relationship would be warmer, despite the cultural differences.

Bill Prouder is a man to admire. From humble beginnings he gained an excellent education and put it, plus his determination and nouse, to work achieving a world renownd financial empire without infringing his decent standards.
His expertise is in the privatisation of liberated, eastern block companies. Along the way he upsets some of the shady, immensely wealthy oligarchs . His young lawyer whom he totally trusts and believes in discovers a massive fraud against the Russian tax office perpetrated by high ranked Russian officials who in turn make the young man’s life a living hell. They imprison and torture him month after month denying him medical attention for an agonising condition in an attempt to have him retract his findings. This brave young lawyer will not do so, so they beat him to death.
The second half of the book concerns Bill Prouder’s crusade to get justice for his friend’s good name and family. His fight involves the British and U.S. government at the highest levels. Republican Senator John McCain comes out of it as a hero while democrat senator Kerry is portrayed as a self obsesed disgrace. On the other side the battle goes all the way up to Putin and what a piece of work he is.
If this was a work of fiction one would think it OTT, but it is a well documented truth opening one’s eyes to the Russian greed, cruelty, in-bread dishonesty and it must be noted stupidity.
Bill Prouder to his own danger sticks to his task and is much to be admired. I promise this is one you won’t put down.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member