Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers -- including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials -- Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers' own bank.
Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930, and protected by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are legally beyond the reach of any government or jurisdiction. The bank is untouchable. Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made tax-free profits of 1.17 billion in 2011-2012.
Since its creation, the bank has been at the heart of global events but has often gone unnoticed. Under Thomas McKittrick, the bank's American president from 1940-1946, the BIS was open for business throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank, and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret contact point to keep the channels of international finance open.
After 1945 the BIS -- still behind the scenes -- for decades provided the necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002. It now stands at the center of efforts to build a new global financial and regulatory architecture, once again proving that it has the power to shape the financial rules of our world. Yet despite its pivotal role in the financial and political history of the last century and during the economic current crisis, the BIS has remained largely unknown -- until now.
Budapest's dark history finally catches up with Detective Balthazar Kovacs in the final instalment in Adam LeBor's Hungarian crime trilogy.
Budapest, January 2016. The Danube is grey and half-frozen, covered with ice, and the city seems to have gone into hibernation. But not for Detective Balthazar Kovacs. He has been called out to investigate the disappearance of a young Israeli historian, Elad Harari.
Harari was working in the archives of the city's Jewish museum, researching what happened to the assets of the Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. His work could bring justice to the families of those who died, but it seems not everyone welcomed his probing into the country's darkest period.
Balthazar soon finds that there are powerful forces out to sabotage his investigation, as bizarre warnings escalate to violent attacks. When they finally make their demand, Balthazar will be forced to make an impossible decision: give up real evidence of horrific wrongdoing in Hungary's past, or see the young historian die.
'Budapest is a versatile and exciting setting for Adam LeBor's superb thriller ... As well as being a police procedural, the book deals with politics and organised crime in Hungary. LeBor lives in Budapest and it shows in the vivid detail' The Times
'All the twists and turns of a high-concept Hollywood thriller ... But what makes it really stand out is the way LeBor intelligently grafts his novel's thriller elements on to Hungarian history and politics as well as current events, from the rise of populism to organised crime. Each facet has the ring of truth' Financial Times
When Detective Balthazar Kovacs is called out before dawn to a brothel owned by his brother, he knows it can only be bad news.
A customer has died in the brothel's VIP room. Worse still, he's an Arab financier, a guest of government, connected to a massive investment programme that could transform Hungary. It looks like a heart attack - but why has the brothel's CCTV footage been erased? Kovacs knows only too well the treacherous undercurrents that permeate life in Hungary's capital - the deadly intersection between the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history. He knows that his investigation is more than likely to lead back to the seat of power, the Országház, in Kossuth Square... but he does not expect to be swept into his own family's dark past too.
''A first-class crime thriller' CHARLES CUMMINGS.
'An elegant, atmospheric tale that twists and surprises at every turn' DAILY MAIL.
'Budapest is a versatile and exciting setting for Adam LeBor's superb thriller ... As well as being a police procedural, the book deals with politics and organised crime in Hungary. LeBor lives in Budapest and it shows in the vivid detail' THE TIMES, Book of the Month.
'LeBor continues to captivate with his handsome Roma gypsy detective, Balthazar Kovacs ... A gripping, well-observed tale that will enthral and tantalise from the first page to the last' THE LADY.
Balthazar Kovacs, a detective on Budapest's murder squad, is on the trail of a dead man. Minutes ago, Kovacs received an anonymous SMS showing a body and an address: 26 Republic Square - the former Communist Party headquarters and once the most feared building in the country. But now, amid the ruins of the demolished building, Kovacs finds no dead body, just six members of the Gendarmerie - an elite police force reporting directly to the prime minister - and an invitation to hand over his phone and cease his investigation. Kovacs has taken his first step on a journey deep into Budapest's dark heart, towards a deadly intersection of the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history. A journey that will force him to choose between the law and family loyalty.
"Adam LeBor reveals that crime fiction still has exciting new avenues to explore" VAL MCDERMID.
"A first-class crime thriller ... with an original and engaging protagonist" CHARLES CUMMING
"LeBor writes fiction with the scrupulous focus of the journalist ... the world he creates is driven by the sharp edge of reality" ALAN FURST
UN covert negotiator, Yael Azoulay, has travelled to Europe to help in the investigation of a people-trafficking ring linked to a series of terrorist attacks. Azoulay's boss, UN Secretary General Hussein, asks Yael to broker a secret meeting with the Iranian president in Reykjavic. All parties want the violence to stop. But Azoulay realises that the terrorist chain leads to someone she's met before. Someone for whom terror is just the beginning...
