Numbered Account [Mass Market Paperback]

Christopher Reich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

A job he shouldn't have taken... A woman he shouldn't have loved... A secret he shouldn't expose...if he wants to live.

Nick Neumann had it all: a Harvard degree, a beautiful fiancée, a star-making Wall Street career.  But behind the dazzling veneer of this golden boy is a man haunted by the brutal killing of his father seventeen years before.

Now chilling new evidence has implicated his father's employer, the United Swiss Bank, in the crime.  Nick doesn't know how.  Or why.  But he has a plan to find out: move to Zurich.  Work for the same bank.  Follow in his father's footsteps.  Look for the same secrets...and uncover something so shocking, so unexpected, justice may not be enough.

For as a circle of treachery tightens around him, as a woman with secrets of her own enters his life, Nick makes another chilling discovery.  Not just about his father but about himself.  And how far he's willing to go to find out what happened seventeen years before--when a man died and a conspiracy was born.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Through the eyes of Christopher Reich, dive into the corrupt world of international high finance. In his debut novel, Reich offers a realistic and gritty "day-in-the-life" perspective on working in the world's financial mecca. For Nick Neumann, an ex-marine turned Harvard MBA with a gorgeous fiancée and an elite position at Morgan Stanley, life is good--until his mother's untimely death opens old wounds and rehashes questions regarding his father's unsolved murder. Nick wants the truth and is willing to sacrifice his career, love, and future for a crack at untangling the mystery surrounding his father's death. To do this, he takes a job at the prestigious United Swiss Bank, the venerable financial cornerstone of Geneva and his father's former employer. Before he can begin his investigation, however, disturbing events come into play: One portfolio manager is dead, another had a "nervous breakdown," and his training manager is jumping ship to cast accounts with their staunch enemy. All of the managers have one thing in common: they each oversaw a multimillion-dollar numbered account owned by the mysterious Pasha. If that isn't enough, the DEA steps in and orders Nick to serve up Pasha on a silver platter. Being the embodiment of American ideals, Nick takes matters into his own hands and is caught in a ruthless conspiracy that stretches around the world and into his personal life. Peppered with murder, revenge, and first-rate espionage, Numbered Account is a thinking person's thriller, a refreshing break from the old standbys. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Delacorte is definitely banking on this first novel, with domestic and foreign rights already sold. Featuring the ever-intriguing Swiss banking system of numbered accounts, Reich's thriller focuses on the ethical issues of the origin and funding activities of huge "anonymous" sums. Enter ex-Marine Nicholas Neumann, who arrives at United Swiss Bank, his father's employer, to solve his murder 17 years ago when Nick was a child. Nick's quest throws him into an international web of hostile takeovers, drugs, and arms sales (including a nuclear weapon). A potential problem is the stereotypic portrayal of the primary villain as a ruthless Muslim. The novel is definitely a male fantasy, for after he conquers all, Neumann returns to the States to reclaim the fiancee who dropped him when he left for Zurich. This has almost all the elements of a best seller: murder, exotic locales, high finance, and danger, but there is surprisingly little sex; does the violence substitute? For public libraries with a large demand for thrillers.
-?Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib, Highland Heights
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Dell (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440225299
• ISBN-13: 978-0440225294
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi Everyone,

It's great to be part of Amazon's new Author Page. Here's a short bio.

I was born November 12, 1961 in Tokyo, Japan and moved to Los Angeles four years later, in late 1965. I graduated from Harvard School (now Harvard-Westlake) in 1979, then made the move to Washington DC where I attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Upon graduating with a degree in international economics (a field in which I was neither particularly gifted nor interested), I worked as a stock broker for two years. One day my best client said, "Chris, you're a nice guy, but you have no idea what you're doing in this business. You might get into trouble one day. You gotta get your butt to business school." I followed his advice and headed down to Austin, Tx, to earn an MBA at UT.

After graduating from UT, I moved even farther east....all the way to Switzerland, where I joined the Union Bank of Switzerland, first in Geneva and then in Zurich. I left banking and worked first as a consultant, and then as the CEO of a small watch company in Neuchatel. The only thing I missed out on was the chocolate business! Anyway, after 7 years in Switzerland, I decided that it was high time to become an author. I'd never written a short story and I hadn't taken a single English class in college. So what? I was a demon reader and I thought for sure I could do. My wonderful wife supported the decision wholeheartedly and we moved back to Austin, where I would write my first novel, Numbered Account.

The rest, as they say, is history....Or, as I say, "history in the making!!"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge and terror: a delicious concoction, June 3, 2005

By 

D. Ross "http://directorblue.blogspot.com" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Numbered Account (Mass Market Paperback)

Nick Neumann has what, at first glance, appears to be the perfect life. The former U.S. Marine just graduated from Harvard Business School and has joined the fast-paced world of Wall Street. His girlfriend is beautiful, the scion of an incredibly wealthy family. But Nick does have one problem: the unsolved murder of his father weighs heavily on his mind.

His father, murdered almost twenty years ago, worked for the secretive Swiss bank USB. And so Nick decides to follow in his footsteps: to move to Switzerland, join USB, and determine whether the trail can be followed or whether's it's gone cold.

Within days of joining USB, Nick finds himself entangled in a nightmarish conflict. The "Pasha", USB's premier client, is moving ever larger sums of money through the bank in seemingly nonsensical fashion. The DEA, investigating large-scale money transfers through USB, begins squeezing Nick for information. And an attractive vice president at the bank seems to be paying very close attention to Nick's activities.

This is Reich's first book and is, simply put, masterful. While its length (750 pages) is daunting, Reich's firsthand knowledge of the Swiss banking industry is invaluable and enlightening. I can almost guarantee that you'll be swept into this ambitious and fulfilling story: revenge and terror mixed into a near-perfect concoction.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but not particularly memorable, April 25, 2006

By 

B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Numbered Account (Mass Market Paperback)

This novel was compelling enough to keep me reading through until the end, even though it ran to over 700 pages. That said, however, Numbered Account is not especially memorable in terms of plot, characters or suspense -- all things that make reading for entertainment a worthwhile pursuit.

Nick Neumann is a likeable enough character, but he somehow didn't inspire a lot of passion from me in terms of whether or not he survives his situation and goes on to live a productive life. *Spoiler coming up.* And the fact that he ends up with his former fiance, Anna, is neither surprising nor very interesting since we never really get to know her and she never actually appears in the book.

I'm just not that curious about Swiss banking procedures to rate this story any higher than a 3. This is the kind of paperback that, should you find it lying around the vacation condo on a rainy day, you would pick up and read, but don't go out of your way to purchase it.

Maybe Reich's other books are more engaging than this one, given that other reviewers have awarded more stars than I. Somehow, though, I doubt I'll ever find out because Numbered Account just didn't get my number, so to speak.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book, January 24, 2001

By 

"rraccoon" (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Numbered Account (Hardcover)

"Numbered Account" is a very good book: the plot is interesting and the more you go on with it, the faster you want to turn pages. Although the beginning may be a bit slow, Reich makes his best when he describes the Swiss bank system, and it is almost as if you could hear the steps of someone entering one of these huge Swiss banks that look like ancient temples with their own codes and laws. The characters have enough depth and it is absolutely intriguing to enter the world of the private banking in Switzerland. The country is well described, while the emotional conflict of the main character is nicely outlined. It is evident that the author has a great knowledge of Switzerland, its banking system, and he has great skill because he managed to mix a potential boring theme like banking with a pacing personal war of Nicholas Neumann, the main character. Definitely a book that is worth to be bought and read.