“An up-to-the-minute compelling thriller that combines political sophistication with traditional gore and glory.”
(Ray Snoddy, former media editor of The Times and Financial Times and BBC presenter)
“This a terrific thriller beautifully paced as it gets faster and more furious in the final third of the book. I give it five stars.” (Temple Emmet Williams, Former Editor, The Reader’s Digest)
NEW VIDEO TRAILER FORCORRUPTION OF POWER
Click HERE to watch the video trailer
With his sights set on territorial expansion, the Russian President calls upon independent troubleshooter, ALEX LEKSIN, when his plans to shift Russia’s economic focus towards the East threatens to spread the current conflagration in the Middle East up to Russia’s own borders. Against a background of political corruption, state-sponsored terrorism and increased Taliban insurgency, Leksin’s investigations take him from Moscow into Turkmenistan, one of the world's most sinister countries right at the heart of Central Asia.
WHERE TO BUY
CoP is published by Peach Publishing as a paperback and kindle e-book, and is available from all global Amazon stores,including:
Amazon UK Amazon USA
Amazon is running a SPECIAL MONTHLY PROMOTION of CoP at a discounted price in the UK and Australia throughout February. /
Contents:
- Video trailer: Corruption of Power (CoP)
- Interview Notes
- Only in Russia . . . . .
- Choice of Turkmenistan as a source
- Boris reads The Oligarch: A Thriller
- Some Further Reviews of CoP
- About the Author of the Leksin thrillers
- Follow the Author
Interview notes
I have continued to give a number of interviews, and extracts from those with Metro Reader, Beachbound Booksand Bookwormies are set out below.
How did you think of writing this book? Who inspired you?
I think it was my time in Russia and Central Asia that was the main inspiration. I’ve always been interested in writing, but was too busy with the day job to get around to it. But working in Moscow in the mid to late 90’s, and then some of the Central Asian ‘Stans’ after that, provided me with a wealth of potential stories. It was an exciting time to be in both places. In Russia, Yeltsin was standing on his tank in front of the White House; the oligarchs were acquiring massive chunks of Russia’s major businesses on the cheap from a severely weakened Yeltsin government; turf wars foreshortened the lifespan of numerous chief executives in the oil, banking and natural resources sectors; the Rouble crashed, wiping out the savings of many Russian workers and pensioners; and a relative unknown called Putin suddenly appeared on the political scene. In Central Asia, Turkmenbashi, a former Communist apparatchik, now President, crippled the country with his excesses and eccentricities; Western businesses fled Uzbekistan, sick to death of State and security service interference; and in the courts, judges sized up the weight of their bribes rather than the evidence before coming to their verdicts. Against this background, who wouldn’t want to tell a story?
Tell us about your main character.
The main character of The Oligarch and now Corruption of Power is Alex Leksin. He is the son of Russian emigres and raised in England. He had a glittering school and university career, and was recruited by MI5 while he was finishing his MBA at Harvard Business School to work in a new financial forensic unit aimed at combating ‘big ticket’ crime by following the money. After honing his forensic skills, he concludes that the biggest and most lucrative market for his services would be Russia, and moves there. By the time Corruption of Power takes place, his reputation and his contacts are fully established, and his services are so much in demand, his success fee rises to a non-negotiable one million euros.
Back in England, one of Leksin’s hang-up was not being quite British enough. To his surprise the same problem dogs him after his move to Moscow (not quite Russian enough). He’s a man of few real friends, but those he has are very close. Key among them is Nikolai Koriakov, a friend from his Cambridge days who is now deputy minister at the Department of Overseas Development and has the ear of Karpev, the Russian President.
Leksin is a man who is exceptionally driven. It’s not just a matter of money, it’s a matter of pride that he succeeds. While his initial approach to his assignments is methodical, it tends to be his intuition in the end that sees him through. If the need arises, he can look after himself, having been in his university karate team. / One of his driving forces is the desire to reconstitute his great-grandfather’s art collection. Before the Russian revolution, his grandfather had been a collector of some repute, but when he’d fled from the Bolsheviks, he’d been forced to leave his paintings behind. Each time Leksin gets paid for another completed assignment, he buys back another of these paintings which he displays in his apartment in Skatertny Lane, right in the heart of ‘old Moscow’.
Leksin’s relationships with women tend not to run smoothly. His sister, Lena, is a highly-strung but very talented pianist who, when the book opens, is recovering from a nervous breakdown in a Swiss clinic. His engagement to Vika Ustinov, an oligarch’s daughter, was broken off following a car accident – something that proves awkward since she is now running her late father’s conglomerate, the object of Leksin’s investigation in Corruption of Power.
What were the challenges faced while writing the books?
Plotting, first and foremost, given that I write thrillers. The plots are intricate, involving a number of different threads that at some point need to be brought together, and the twists need to be properly set up, otherwise the reader feels cheated. Luckily this is the part of the process I really enjoy most.
Next, discipline. There are always other things I could be doing other than writing, and I have to force myself at times to get on with it – especially if I’m stuck on a difficult passage to write.
Finally, the editing process. I find that it takes me at least as long to get from draft to finished manuscript as it takes me to write the first draft. Editing is hard work, often involving complete rewriting, but it’s absolutely key.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I start with a very detailed plan of how the story is going to unfold, section by section. Given how intricate plots tend to be in thriller, I can’t think of another way of going about it. Indeed the planning process can take at least six months as strand after strand is built up and interwoven.
Of course, often during the writing process, the character takes over and takes me in a direction I hadn’t expected. So although the plan is fixed from the outset, it has to be flexible enough to adapt when this happens.
How can readers discover more about you and you work?
My website has details about me and my books, as well as a blog and photos of many of the settings in which the book is set. The link is:
Only in Russia . . . . .
In his 2000 election campaign Putin announced the end of the oligarchs. Looking back on what has happened in the meantime, the Market Mogul concludes that Putin’s attack was not against corruption but against his critics and potential rivals. So long as the oligarchs paid their taxes and did not oppose Putin, they and their wealth were left untouched (for example, Abramovich and Deripaska, who created an empire comprising 70% of Russia’s aluminium industry). By contrast, those who opposed Putin’s regime found themselves hounded by the Russian authorities (for example, Gussinsky whose media, NTV and Segodnya, criticised Putin’s handling of Chechnya; ex-Yukos boss Khodorkovsky imprisoned for tax fraud after funding an opposition party; and Berezovsky who apparently committed suicide after being exiled to London). It is hard to avoid the conclusion that “this whole struggle against corruption and oligarchs was just an excuse to get rid of politically uncomfortable people who could undermine Putin’s authority”.
******
The Levada Centre, Russia’s leading independent pollster, recently polled Russians about their readiness to give pollsters honest answers. Almost half those questioned were of the view that most Russians would be reluctant to discuss current affairs with pollsters, and nearly a fifth felt uncomfortable discussing such matters with colleagues or, in many cases, even families. The explanation? Fear of retribution in these Putin-esque days.
******
President GurbangulyBerdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan has been immortalised with a gold-leaf statue in Ashgabat ofhimself on horseback placed on a mountain of marble, some seventy feet above the city. While the President is well known for his love of horses, a subject on which he has written books, the Washington Post points out that he is best known to foreigners for falling off his horse in a horse race in 2013. Notwithstanding the fall, local television still announced that the winner was . . . . the President.
****** /
The penthouse at 1 Hyde Park, London
London, via its real estate market, has become the money-laundering capital of the world, and the city’s newest bus sightseeing tour takes full advantage of this. Organised by anti-corruption campaigners, apparently in conjunction with the Hudson Institute and the Henry Jackson Society, the trip – which has been dubbed the Kleptocracy Tour - shows visitors the palatial homes belonging to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, many of whom have close linkswith senior politicians, including Putin and ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovich. Stops include Oleg Deripaska’s home in Belgrave Square and RinatAkhmetov’s penthouse at 1 Hyde Park, which at £136 million ranks as London’s most expensive apartment. The aim is “to shed the light on those businessmen who derived their fortunes from kleptocracy and those who helped them bring ill-gotten funds into our country,” Roman Borisovich, the tour guide, told Ukraine Today.
*******
The problem of succession is at the forefront of the minds of Central Asia’s current leaders. It has been clear for a long time that four out of the five of them have no intention of leaving office soon. Indeed, Tajikistan is following some of the others in introducing legislation to make its leader President for life. The problem, however, is that these leaders are no spring chickens. As a result, they are preparing the way for nepotism to fill the gap when they have gone. In both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan the President has no son, so daughters and sons-in-law are being groomed for high office. In Tajikistan, legislation has been introduced to lower the age eligibility for becoming President, whereas in Turkmenistan the President has made several television appearances accompanied by his grandson, a mere boy!
******
Russia’s economic crisis is far worse than the Kremlin admits and optimism about the future has no basis in reality. That is the verdict former Central Bank chief Sergei Aleksashenko delivered to Radio Liberty. The President wagered on ordinary Russians withstanding the hardships brought about by the double-whammy of collapsing global oil prices and Western sanctions in return for a strong foreign-policy. He has responded to the loss of Western export markets by announcing a strategy of developing new trade ties in Asia to replace them, particularly those for Russia’s oil and other natural resources. This, of course, is something that will be familiar to readers of Corruption of Power.
Choice of Turkmenistan as a setting
Dawn Roberto recently gave me a chance to explain on her excellent blog, Dawn’s Reading Nook, why I chose to set so much of the action of CoP in Turkmenistan, a little known but highly sinister country in Central Asia. Here is my explanation.
Geographically, Turkmenistan represents the heart of Central Asia. Nestled on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, it shares borders with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as well as the more volatile Iran and Afghanistan. With average summer temperatures between 40C and 50C, over three-quarters of its surface comprises the Karakum Desert, dry, inhospitable and deadly. Communication is poor, roads are often nearly unpassable, and locations are remote. Outside Ashgabat, itself marble-clad and extravagant looking, the fabric of the country is crumbling fast. All grist to the mill for a thriller writer.
For a century an integral part of the Soviet empire, Turkmenistan obtained independence in 1990 when the USSR dissolved. Although reputed to have the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas, the country’s economy has tanked on its own, ill-prepared for the new free market conditions and too corrupt to make good use of its gas revenues. This situation was exacerbated by the assumption of power by Saparmyrat Niyazov, the region's former communist leader. A demagogue - power-crazed, unbalanced, at times verging on lunacy - his first actions were to change his own name to Turkmenbashi (literally, father of all Turkmen) and declare himself President for life. The bulk of the nation's vast natural gas revenues were siphoned off to a 'foreign exchange reserve account', reputedly held at one of Germany's largest banks, the purpose and management of which remains undisclosed.
Under Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan became a country where the incredible was all too often the truth. To see what I mean, just look at a few examples of the man’s excesses. In a country characterised by severe water shortages, he designed a vast lake to be built in the Karakum Desert surrounded by cypress trees, a ski resort, and an ice palace close to the capital, while simultaneously allowing the fabric of the country to crumble. He banned opera, ballet and the circus for being, in his words, 'decidedly unturkmen-like'. On another occasion he came out against the use of gold teeth and caps. 'I watched young dogs when I was young,' he pointed out. 'They were given bones to gnaw to strengthen their teeth. Those of you whose teeth have fallen out did not chew on bones.' But health was clearly not always such a priority. Inexplicably, he ordered the closure of all hospitals outside the capital, sacking some 15,000 public health workers at a stroke, insisting that in future the sick make their way across the desert to the Capital for treatment!
Not surprisingly against such a background, Turkmenbashi was forced to keep the press tightly controlled – it was exceptionally risky for a journalist to speak out of turn. Like other dissenting voices (including those holding government posts), / they were regularly persecuted, tortured and/or banished to the desert. According to Russian intelligence sources, Turkmenbashi himself stage-managed a bogus assassination attempt on his own life in order to afford himself an excuse to clear out thousands of such dissidents and their families. Some were exiled or imprisoned. A few were freed. Others were never seen again
The KNB (the Turkmen equivalent of the FSB) played (and continues to play) a key role in enabling the President to maintain his iron grip on the country, and they have always been much in evidence wherever you went. Once when I was wandering around Ashgabat on a Sunday, I stopped to take a photo of a golden statue of Turkmenbashi on a horse and immediately I found myself surrounded by armed guards. What I hadn’t realised was that, in the background to my photo, was a marble staircase leading up to the entrance of the KBN’s headquarters. My camera was snatched away, though with some judicious use of my pigeon Russian I managed to persuade them to give it back. However, I was followed for the rest of the day wherever I went. It was only once I’d retired to my bedroom at the Nissa Hotel for the night that my tail finally gave up and returned to HQ!
And even though Turkmenbashi died of a heart attack in 2006, his successor has done little or nothing to redress his abuses. Each year the State of the Nation address promises reform and economic reconstruction, but these have proven empty promises and people no longer even listen. Things continue very much as before, the cult of the President (though, now the new President) continues, and the country’s record on human rights remains one of the worst in the world. The KBN (now, officially, the MNB) goes from strength to strength, carrying out the President’s agenda unquestioningly while keeping the population compliant and uncomplaining.
The Oligarch: The First Leksin Thriller
Bulldog Boris sleeping contentedly after reading his free copy of The Oligarch during the thriller’s free weekend promotion in early February.
Some further reviews of Corruption of Power
“Corruption of Power, the second book in the Alex Lexsin series is about as fine an example of a perfectly nuanced thriller, as you will read all year. Premised on Russia's quest to regain its former colonies, GW Eccles writes with the authority of an expert on the region, and he goes to great lengths to create an utterly convincing story world. The author puts the reader right in the middle of the Garabil Plateau in Turkmenistan, a place I had barely even heard of before I read this book. Fully realised characters, original action sequences and short chapters drive the pace of this outstanding thriller.”
"Corruption of Power by G. W. Eccles is one of the most engrossing thrillers ! have read for a long time. Set in Central Asia, the book is fast-moving and exciting.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed this intriguing thriller. It is not only a very exciting story, but also gives the reader fascinating and detailed descriptions of some remote areas of the former Soviet Union.”
“The story is a gripping tale of grit and action amidst corruption and instability.”
“This is what a good read should be: engrossing; informative; well-written.”
“I recommend Corruption of Power to anyone who wants a good read and a fast moving exciting tale with something for everyone. To those who wish to learn what is happening in Russia and its neighbouring states now then this book is for you.”
“If you like fast-paced, action packed thrillers, then this is for you . . . Eccles has managed to create a great depth to his characters, and they certainly don't come across as two-dimensional or flat and uncaring.”
“A good insight into the political and cultural background in Russia and ex Soviet countries set in a compelling action thriller. Reads like a fast moving movie script. Recommended for a ‘un-put-downable’ read.”
Where to buy
Corruption of Power is available as a paperback or kindle e-book from all global Amazon stores, including:
Amazon UK Amazon USA
Amazon is running a SPECIAL MONTHLY PROMOTION of CoP at a discounted price in the UK and Australia throughout February. / About the author of the Leksin thrillers
George Eccles, writing as G W Eccles, graduated from the London School of Economics with a law degree and subsequently became a partner in one of the major international financial advisory firms.
In 1994, George left London to move to Russia and Central Asia during the tumultuous period that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union. His work involved extensive travel throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - often to places with restricted access to foreigners. During his time there, he advised a number of real-life oligarchs how best to take advantage of the opportunities that became available as regulation crumbled and government became increasingly corrupt.
His first thriller: The Oligarch, was awarded a Silver Medal both at the Global E-book Awards 2013 and at the Independent Publishers Book Awards 2013, as well as being selected as IPPY Book of the Day.
His second novel, Corruption of Power, was published by Peach Publishing on 14 December 2015.
George is married andnow lives with his wife – together with a cat called Lenin and a bulldog puppy called Boris - in a hilltop village in the South of France.
Lenin
Follow the author
Website and blog:
Twitter:@gweccles
Facebook:George Eccles
Corruption of Power:Facebook group
Goodreads:G W Eccles
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