This Business Is Murder
By John Katzenbach
Sunday, October 6, 1996
When is a promise not a promise? Easy: In the high-powered world of international finance, a promise is not a promise unless it's carefully spelled out in a contract, properly vetted by teams of lawyers and monitored continuously by narrow-eyed, soulless accountants.
Or, so it would seem in Michael M. Thomas's new business-class thriller, Baker's Dozen. Thomas, who has made a career out of finding tales of intrigue, homicide and mystery in the moneyed realms of Wall Street and the boardrooms of the Fortune 500, hews this new novel from the same territory, which he seems to know well.
Baker's Dozen begins with an assassin awaiting his target, partially submerged in a saltwater pond adjacent to the toney Long Island vacation house of a very rich man (almost all the characters of Baker's Dozen are in the "rich" to "unbelievably rich" categories). When the assassin spots his quarry, the man is unfortunately accompanied by a small child. Tough luck. For the kid, not the assassin.
With this tone of violence established, Baker's Dozen swings into its real subject: money. How it is made. How it is spent. What influence it wields. Who gets hurt by it. An old-fashioned, family-owned engineering company, headed up by sportsman, big-game hunter, long-time blue blood, upper-crust WASP, Princeton-educated hockey star H.A. Baker, is being gulped up by the financially rapacious jaws of gazillionaire Jack Mannerman, who sees the acquisition as a piece -- and a small piece, at that -- in a grand international communications corporate design. Mannerman is being assisted in this venture by his crack team of advisers, which includes Lucy Preston, public relations whiz. The plucky, from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks Lucy shows early on that not only is she clever, attractive and astute, but also apparently the only one who possesses a conscience -- a somewhat useless appendage in Mannerman's world.
As part of the acquisition, Mannerman promises Baker that he will invest some $75 million (chump change) in upgrading and streamlining Baker's former company. Baker wants to make certain that his former employees are taken care of and that their futures are secure under the new management. This is the promise that Baker doesn't require his lawyers to spell out in exacting detail. Instead, he trusts Mannerman's handshake.
Bad idea.
It doesn't take long for Mannerman's sharks to set production goals that can't be reached and for the inevitable yard sale of the company to take place. Baker -- with whom Lucy has had an affair -- decides to utilize all his considerable skill as a hunter and tracker to do in Mannerman and his cohorts. Baker's Dozen then becomes similar to (but not as effective as) The Day of the Jackal, as Lucy discerns the plot against her now ex-boss and, to head off Baker and spoil the revenge he is exacting, enlists the aid of an attractive, if somewhat flaky Hollywood location scout; her father; an ex-FBI agent; and one of the latter's buddies from the agency.
Author Thomas is a thriller-writing professional. He lines up all the elements of his plot in classic fashion. Thrillers are something of a straight-ahead, drag-strip-type ride, and Baker's Dozen -- if not one of the flat-out, hold-your-breath fastest models -- certainly heads down the track with a suitable roar and efficiency.
Where the author seems most at home is amidst the spending of vast sums of money -- either on the details of a corporate buy-out or the purchasing of a designer dress for wear at a conspicuous party. His prose is replete with the brand names adored by the fabulously wealthy. He seems to have the foibles of excess down pat. He manages to slide into the text some pretty intriguing ideas, as well, about the direction the world seems to be turning, driven by the engines of international finance and commerce. These ideas -- mainly about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer -- are worked seamlessly into his tale.
Of course, like any thriller writer, Thomas requires the reader to suspend a good deal of rational judgment at key moments. It is hard to really believe, for example, that plucky Lucy, when she amasses her evidence about the killer stalking Mannerman and his minions, would really think that she and her little team were better equipped to deal with the murderer than any authority. But one doesn't read books such as Baker's Dozen for their sense of reality. One reads them as an escape. And Thomas has provided a suitable -- not electric, not heart-stopping -- but orderly and accommodating entertainment.
John Katzenbach is a onetime Miami newspaper reporter and the author of six books. His latest novel is scheduled for publication next summer.
© 1996 The Washington Post Co.
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