In for a Ruble

by David Duffy

Overview

A pulse-pounding mystery featuring Russian-American detective Turbo Vlost, the deadliest ex-KGB operative to ever hit New York

Turbo Vlost is back. He's depressed, drinking too much, and terrified that the love of his life is truly gone.

Hired to test the security of billionaire hedge fund manager Sebastian Leitz's computer system, Turbo finds himself peeling back the fetid layers of an immigrant family living the American dream while unable to escape mysterious and unspeakable demons.

Turbo isn't the only one interested in the Leitzs. The Belarus-based Baltic Enterprise Commission—-a shadowy purveyor of online sleaze—-has its claws in Leitz's brother-in-law. So, it appears, does Leitz's brother. And Leitz's son, a teenaged computer whiz, is running his own million-dollar schemes.

Thanks to his legwork and his partner's data-mining monster, Turbo can see all the cards. But to play the hand, he has to join the kind of game he recognizes from his childhood in the Gulag—-one where the odds suddenly grow short and losers don't always come out alive.

David Duffy's In For a Ruble will enthrall fans of Martin Cruz Smith in this action-packed Turbo Vlost adventure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312621919
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/17/2012
Series:	The Turbo Vlost Thrillers , #2
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	13.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

DAVID DUFFY spent twenty-five years in the corporate and financial public relations business, based in New York and London. This experience turned out to be good practice for writing fiction. Along the way he helped bring Antiques Roadshow to PBS and income tax to Poland. He and his wife live in New York's Hudson River Valley.

Read an Excerpt

In for a Ruble

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By David Duffy

Thomas Dunne Books

Copyright © 2012 David Duffy
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312621919

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CHAPTER 1
 
 
Everything about Sebastian Leitz was big. The man himself was six foot four and weighed two-eighty easy. A tractor tire wrapped his midsection, he wore size fourteen shoes, and nobody made gloves to fit his hands. The outsize head, with its fat pear nose, kidney-pool blue eyes and inflated inner-tube lips, made him seem larger still. The head was topped by a bushy, orange Afro that had last seen the barber when Brezhnev was general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A circus clown on steroids. His voice—a foghorn bass—could’ve filled a big top.
Leitz needed the big head to hold the brain. He’d earned two doctorates, mathematics and economics, from Harvard and MIT. He’d written countless papers and a half dozen books. He was a full professor at Columbia by twenty-six. People were talking Nobel Prize by thirty. That was before he quit academics and went to Wall Street to make big money.
Leitz was worth several billion, and he’d made it all himself—in little more than a decade. His hedge funds regularly ranked high on the performance charts, and Leitz himself consistently topped the compensation tables.
He had a blowback laugh and a blow-up temper. Both blew with the force of a saboteur’s bomb—unseen, unexpected, until they knocked everybody in range off their feet. As I came to find out, not everyone got back up.
He had strong opinions and was willing to state them loudly and longly if he thought there was reason to do so. Otherwise he didn’t waste breath. He ignored anyone he pegged as foolish or stupid. He didn’t give a damn what they thought of him.
Leitz had a big penchant for secrecy. No one at his firm (other than himself, of course) was allowed to take anything home from the office. An idle comment in the elevator, if it involved the company’s business, was a firing offense. He hated losing—big time. He was known to throw whatever was in reach at whomever put him on the wrong end of a trade. When I met him, he was working on the biggest deal of his life—buying and merging two of America’s TV networks, thereby taking hold of a big chunk of the media landscape. His bid had dominated the financial press and the tabloids for weeks.
Leitz was a force of nature—one of those people God or whoever is in charge put here from time to time to shake things up, make life interesting. I suppose, despite everything, that’s why I liked him. But all the size and smarts, money and privilege in the world are no guarantee you won’t fuck it up.


 
Copyright © 2012 by David Duffy


Continues...

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Excerpted from In for a Ruble by David Duffy Copyright © 2012 by David Duffy. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

In Duffy's gritty sequel to 2011's Last to Fold, Turbo Vlost, a former KGB operative, has been hired by billionaire Sebastian Leitz to find security flaws in Leitz's computer systems, but he quickly realizes that his employer has much bigger problems than he anticipated. Further investigation leads Turbo to discover that each member of Leitz's family is hiding something, and some of these secrets lead to a malevolent Eastern European computer conglomerate, which has its sights set on Leitz and company. And as if becoming entangled in a family's dangerously dirty laundry weren't enough, Vlost's ex has returned and is looking to reboot their old affair. Saturated with international intrigue and peopled by a cast of sordid characters—including mobsters, pedophiles, and shady businessmen—, Duffy's latest is high-tension, meticulously plotted, and immensely entertaining. Readers will delight in Duffy's handling of the thrilling proceedings. (July)

Publishers Weekly

In Duffy's gritty sequel to 2011's Last to Fold, Turbo Vlost, a former KGB operative, has been hired by billionaire Sebastian Leitz to find security flaws in Leitz's computer systems, but he quickly realizes that his employer has much bigger problems than he anticipated. Further investigation leads Turbo to discover that each member of Leitz's family is hiding something, and some of these secrets lead to a malevolent Eastern European computer conglomerate, which has its sights set on Leitz and company. And as if becoming entangled in a family's dangerously dirty laundry weren't enough, Vlost's ex has returned and is looking to reboot their old affair. Saturated with international intrigue and peopled by a cast of sordid characters—including mobsters, pedophiles, and shady businessmen—, Duffy's latest is high-tension, meticulously plotted, and immensely entertaining. Readers will delight in Duffy's handling of the thrilling proceedings.” —Publishers Weekly

“A compelling, intelligent and witty take on the classic detective story. That the talented Duffy makes his ex-KGB tough-guy into a thoughtful, honorable and even charming protagonist is just one reason this book is terrific—it's also fast-paced, unpredictable and completely original.” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity winner, author of The Other Woman

“David Duffy has done it again: given us a smart, morally complex page-turner featuring ex-KGB agent turned New York City private eye, Turbo Vlost. Like Marlowe before him, Turbo dives deep as he tangles with Russian oligarchs and ghosts from Stalin's gulag. He goes to some dark places but never wavers because truth matters. A fast-paced, witty, bruising, always thoughtful read.” —Leonard Rosen, Edgar-nominated author of All Cry Chaos

“I loved David Duffy's first book, Last to Fold, and I'm here to tell you In For a Ruble is every bit as good. If you don't yet know Turbo Vlost and his friends –and enemies– you're a lucky reader, because now you get to meet them. Don't wait!” —SJ Rozan, Edgar-winning author of Ghost Hero

“One of the most original protagonists I've ever come across . . . Duffy knows his Russia inside and out, but most of all, he knows how to tell a story with flair and elegance. This is really, really good.” —Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Vanished and Buried Secrets, on Last to Fold

“The dialogue is crisp and rings true, and the main character is easy to like and root for.” —Publishers Weekly on Last to Fold

“A new addition to the line of suspense stars at St. Martin's, introducing an irresistible character and a very rich milieu—the New York City subculture of Russian émigrés, underworld characters and ruthless new-rich swashbucklers….I'm looking forward to the next one.” —Sullivan County Democrat on Last to Fold

“From guns, drugs and espionage we get the full gambit in the fast and furious look within the Russian mob.” —Suspense Magazine on Last to Fold

From the Publisher