Billionaire by Peter James

Billionaire by Peter James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

City stockbroker Alex Rocq leads a comfortable life - with a luxury flat in London, a country cottage, a very expensive car, and a lucrative job that still leaves time for leisure. But all this isn't enough. After receiving a tip-off, Alex decides to play the commodities market for himself. He soon learns the hard way that fortune doesn't always favour the brave, and his luck comes to an abrupt end.

When he is offered the chance to write off his debts - in exchange for special services and silence - Rocq can't believe his luck. But how far will a desperate man go to harness the power players around him?

Not my usual genre this one is more of a thriller/spy type book with a mix of commodity stock broking at its heart. We are initially introduced to Alex Rocq a city metals broker on the M4 motorway and his girlfriend Amanda on their way to London and a rather frustrated driver behind them in a hurry called Baenhaker and these characters come nicely together further along in the book.

The story centres around Rocq and his clients dealing in gold and a disastrous deal Rocq makes in coffee which threatens to destroy him. The story moves along fairly quickly and there is a lot of explanation of what a broker does and the price of commodities which although I did find a bit 'over my head' it was necessary to build up tension when he's watching the prices rise and fall and helps to let you feel the excitement and horror when things go the wrong way. That said, James did labour the point at times. I can see why brokers get 'burn out' early in their careers trading on the floor - it must be exhausting.

The storyline was good and the pace was pitched right to keep this moving along but I just felt it lacked something - I haven't read Peter James before and I did kind of enjoy the book but it wasn't a wow for me. It was predictable, I think I always knew he'd come out ok in the end and there weren't any curve balls to navigate round which would have made it a bit more exciting. There were also a lot of secondary characters which did make it confusing at times when I had to go back to see who was 'speaking' to make sense of what I was reading.

Spy thrillers are not my usual genre and because of this maybe my expectations were much higher; it's a well written book, it was enjoyable but just not a wow book. I will try more by this writer as I have been told this is not his best. Only 3 stars from me for this one.