The Protégé: A Novel (Christian Gillette)

The author is good at moving things along at a quick pace. In this book, Wall Street Financier Christian Gillette returns to battle the forces of evil. Namely, a branch of the Mafia represented by The Carbone Family and a shadowy branch of the Defense Department- DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)represented by Norman Boyd and his associate Ganze. It turns out that Boyd is trying to get at a small company owned by Gillette's Everest Capital investment firm in order to profit from nanotechnology. Along the way the reader is introduced to the bright and beautiful heiress Allison Wallace who is ready to invest 15 billion dollars from her family into Everest. But. With conditions. Other events of interest are Gillette's acquisition of a professional football team and approvals for a Las Vegas casino as well as his girlfriend the beautiful singer Faith who is under contract to one of Gillette's companies. All this between big financial deals. And don't forget Gillette is a self made success and good guy who counsels his top employees to donate generously to charity. He is also searching for the answer to his father's death in a plane crash. His father had been a U.S. Senator. As well as the identity of his mother. Who was The Protege? David Wright, heir apparent at Everest, who unintentionally murdered a woman during some kinky sex that was secretly photographed by the mafia. Naturally, they used the photos to blackmail him. The CIA enters the picture too. A lot of different subplots but the author ties them reasonably well together in a fast paced read.

I have liked Stephen Frey's work since I first read his work, so liking this was no surprise for me. I had to step away from book-buying for a while, and am catching up, so the second book featuring Christian Gillette was a bit of a surprise. I did like that, as you start to get a feeling for the character of the lead players. Some rather interesting plot twists remind me of Agatha Christie, just with sharper turns. And, you have the bonus of learning about some form of investment and banking, an area with which I am generally not familiar. I try to mix up my reading, but will be back to read much more Frey before too long, I assure you.

It was purely by accident that I downloaded the sample of The Protege to my kindle. Having just completed the Jack Reacher and Mitch Rapp series I was looking for another action/thriller to consume my spare time. After reading the book, I wondered if someone specifically created this book for me... Wall Street, Las Vegas, mobs, secret service, black mail, body guards... The great thing about Stephen Frey is that you can finish a chapter and feel like it's an ok place to stop. I hate it when an author will just continue a scenario into the next chapter. So this is an easy read. I enjoy the Christian Gilette character and am looking forward to more books and regret not reading The Chairman first...

Great tale. Gillette is a fascinating character. The account of thinking and attitudes of the American oligarchs is believable and a little scary.

Another day on the beach in Maui, spent with Stephen Frey.Would recommend you read The Chairman first, it will add to your enjoyment of this book. They are both great reads! Good guys, really bad guys... smart bad guys (the best kind).. and a timely storyline. Money, power, corruption... oh my!!

Boy have I got sucked into this series of books promoting Christian Gillette. Can't wait for the next book. With this story I could feel myself getting tense while working my way towards the ending. As it turned out, I was surprised to how it ended.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first Frey book, The Chairman. Different, well developed characters, multiple plot lines but not to the point of being distracting. For the same reasons I enjoyed the Chairman, I disliked the Protege. It was the equivalent of baking a cake that is identical to another one, give it a different color frosting and call it unique and different. The book follows the same approach and becomes boring very quickly. Save the $8 and buy something else.

This is a great book for Wall Street junkies. The character are real the lingo authentic and the story line is a page turner

Nice book

Chairmanの続きです。後続もあるみたいですが（まだ読んでません）。Chairmanは同著者の作品の中で一番完成度が高く、設定も合理的なので、こうしてシリーズものとして続くのかもしれません。この著者が得意とするリズムの良い金融スリラーが楽しめるだけでなく、Chairmanのその後の成長と周囲の変遷がまた面白いです。