Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice Paperback – October 20, 2015

This book was very clear and matter of fact, even when dealing with very dramatic and emotionally charged events. The story is naturally compelling with many twists and turns. That it is a true story with so many parallels and tie-ins to the situations and major personalities in the top headlines makes it still urgently relevant, even these years later. If anyone still doubts the veracity and unwavering dedication of Vladimir Putin's entrenched, megalomaniacal dedication to promoting his own self interests with complete need to win at any and all cost, this is a clear case study showing that this has long been and continues to be Putin's m.o. It makes the terrible situation in Ukraine all the more chilling because it shows Putin's long-established pattern of retribution when challenged or resisted, and his overriding need to win, even at unthinkable cost. Not a big surprise to anyone, really, but I believe people need to understand the terrible dangers of supporting current and future leaders who would either underestimate and disbelieve the horrific lengths Putin would go to to achieve his ends and mete out punisment or who actually admire Putin's vicious governing style and will cozy up to him instead of calling out and standing against his evil maneuvers. Lack of resistance to Vladimir Putin and his totalitarian regime equals support. And anyone supporting Putin, directly or indirectly, is supporting a whole miasma of truly evil actions and policies, examples of the like of which have been thoroughly described in this book. IMHO, I don't believe that anyone who is seeking to lead this country should be admiring or complimenting a person as dangerous and morally bereft as Vladimir Putin. It isn't clever or cute to do so and any leader who is inclined to take these toxic political leadership lessons from Putin, as in 'monkey see, monkey do' should never be allowed the opportunity to try to put them in practice in leading the USA. We and our democracy will all suffer irreparable harm if we support and fall under the power of self-serving politicians who reject truth and justice to increase and entrench their own power and wealth. People need to recognize that the evils this book portrays are agonizingly real and if we do not act to protect our democracy from self serving, Putinesqe leaders here, the US will experience the same harms and continue on a dangerous path away from personal freedom and toward political extremism. So I highly recommend this book, if only to remind oneself that good and evil are not just rhetorical concepts and that our words and actions do have consequences and really do matter.

Intriguing and heartbreaking and inspiring. Grateful for the courage, time, and resilience to tell his story…and to choose to be the good in the world.

Overall, Red Notice is a very good book. Browder’s compelling story and writing style make this book easy to rapidly get through. In a way, it’s almost like a well-written spy novel, though the story is real.If it’s such a good book, why didn’t I give it five stars? Well, let me tell you.I got really turned off by Browder’s need to inflate his ego while telling what otherwise is a troubling and important story. It’s already a compelling read; he did not need to embellish it by emphasizing for us lesser-than readers his elite status as a high roller.For example—and this is one of the least egregious examples of this attitude—Browder discusses the events leading up to the dissolution of his marriage. He tells the reader that his first wife, Sabrina, had scheduled a family vacation in Greece and that, after months of what had been a distant relationship between the two, literally and figuratively, they were having a surprisingly wonderful time together. At the end of the vacation, he tells us, she sprung the surprising news on him that she didn’t want to be married to him any longer. He goes on to say that, as he’s seeing Sabrina and their son off at the airport, he realized the following:"As I watched them leave, the feeling of loss that I was so familiar with overcame me. Once again, I had that visceral and empty feeling in my stomach, but this time it was was worse. Losing love was a lot harder than losing money."All right, first, what did this have to do with the corruption and theft going on in Russia? Second, with an attitude like that, I’m not surprised she left him. I can only hope that he has enough life insurance on his second wife to where he’s indifferent to whether she ever comes home or not.Later on, in a passage about Vadim, his trusted aid, having just provided him information from a source in Moscow, he explains having a dilemma. Oh my, what could it be? Is it a devastating decision he has to make, like in _Sophie’s Choice_. No. He is told that the corrupt Russian authorities were trumping up charges against him and he is now pulled between remaining with Vadim for a few more hours in order to ascertain more information about what seems like a dire and dangerous situation, or attending a prior commitment. Well, I’ll let him tell you his predicament:"I had a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but it was 7:30 p.m. and, annoyingly, Elena and I were obligated to be at dinner in half an hour that had been planned for months. An old friend from Salomon Brothers and his fiancée had made a big deal securing an impossible-to-get reservation at a new London restaurant called L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and I couldn’t cancel on such short notice."“Annoyingly”?!? “I couldn’t cancel on such short notice"?!? As if 9 million people in London would not have gladly stepped up to the plate to save ol’ Bill Browder from having to partake in such frivolities during such a trying time in order for him to save himself from imprisonment in Russia. Didn't the couple he was to dine with at such a high-status restaurant have other friends they could called on to step in at the last minute? I will go on a limb and say that, not just the average reader, but all readers of this book can only hope to one day enjoy the "annoyance" faced by Bill Browder.All right, it’s passages like this that make me question the accuracy of the story he’s telling. I do believe him, but I wouldn’t have had any questions at all had he stuck to the story and not wasted the ink inflating his ego. How does the reader know he's not inflating his story? His need to regularly assure the reader that he does not rub elbows with anyone but the top one-percent of the one-percent serves no purpose toward explaining his otherwise interesting story.There are other examples, such as “cringing” while watching a security specialist cut a tiny slit into the lapel of his cashmere blazer in order to install a microphone needed to surreptitiously record a meeting with someone he feared was trying to undermine him. “Oh no, Lovey, not the cashmere blazer.” (In my worst Thurston Howell, III voice.) But I’ll end my criticisms here.The book is good overall, and I do recommend reading it. I just hope that Browder realizes for his subsequent books that his story is compelling enough and he doesn’t need to impress anyone with his high-income status. Yes, Bill, we know you are an elite. You’re rich beyond almost anyone’s wild imagination, but that’s not why anyone wants to read this book.

I don't usually write reviews, especially when most of the reviews already written agree with my thoughts and there is not much to add. But the subject matter of the book and its connection with our current situation made me feel compelled to write a review.Mr. Browder may have started his life as a financial cowboy, but he was up against the kind of evil that requires a special kind of courage and intelligence, and he rose to the occasion. In these dark days we should all be grateful that despite the spinelessness of our politicians we still have people like him and the ones who played the long game along with him.It is quite unfortunate that despite his efforts this evil has continued to spread and is currently casting a dark shadow over all of Europe. It is not vanquished and it may still win. But as long as there are people like him, there is hope. I thank him for this ray of hope.

Bill Browder reveals the dangerous rot of Russia under Putin, and the brave souls who have the courage to expose it.