Stephen Maitland-Lewis

We are all familiar with the Nigerian scam. An unsolicited email offers you a chance to make millions by abetting the transfer of large sums of money out of Nigeria. The premise of this story is a couple of marginally successful businessmen get caught up in the scheme, and soon find themselves in Lagos trying to broker the scheme in a way where they won't get scammed.

Unfortunately for the businessmen, Sam and Tony, there's an even bigger scam being perpetrated at the same time at a might higher level. This brings in the CIA and Mosad, as well as crossing paths with the powerful brother of one of the three men the scam would help leave the country with millions. The odd thing is that the scan could have worked, if it wasn't for this complication.

The atmosphere and tension was spot-on, particularly in Lagos. My only complaint was the author dropped one of the character storylines for some reason. The Department of Energy secretary is instrumental setting up the plot that proves to spoil the scam, but I'd have liked to have seen a few chapters from his viewpoint when his plot starts to go south. He did have his own chapters early on as that storyline was being established.… (mer)

I have never been to Lagos, Nigeria, but a number of my former co-workers have. Their tales of getting through the airport terminal there are very much like what Sam and Tony, the two main protagonists of this novel, experienced. Of course my co-workers were there for legal reasons, so what happened to them later does not come close to matching what came later in this book. The author has chosen for his heroes two men with somewhat dubious morals. Sam has just gone through a divorce and is strapped for cash. When his old friend Tony shows up with a get rich quick plan, seemingly too good to be true, Sam at first declines. Finally, though, he becomes convinced that the scheme will work. It seems that three Nigerians want to move 37 million US dollars to off-shore accounts. For this they need help from a financial expert, which Sam is, and from a real estate expert, which Tony is. What could go wrong?

It turns out a lot could go wrong, and does. In the first place, the money to be transferred belongs to the Nigerian army, not the three "private" citizens. Cooperation from the Nigerian Central Bank has been guaranteed, but of course no mention was made of the need to come up hundreds of thousands of dollars as a bribe. Then our two "heroes" find themselves somehow mixed up with a plan by an U.S. cabinet member to make a fortune on insider trading of oil, a Nigerian official complicit with that plan, and a CIA agent trying to break up the scheme. A Mossad agent becomes involved as well. The story takes many twists from there, but always in a direction where the reader thinks, "Yeah, this could happen." It is a real page-turner for sure.

Along the way, Sam falls for a woman whom the reader naturally suspects as not being who she claims to be at first. However, we eventually realize that she is the character in the novel with the most common sense. The question popped in my head whether the CIA agent was really that. And finally, we learn that Sam's best friend Tony isn't really the kind of friend one needs after all. These are just some examples of twists and turns that take place.

I enjoyed the book, but was a bit put off by the fact that the main character, Sam, was willing to go to great lengths to pull off what he quickly realized was an illegal scam. (And, given what we have all heard about Nigerian scams, what he should have realized from the very beginning.) It was necessary to the plot, sort of an "Oceans 11" thing, but still, I need to see good guys putting the bad guys away at the end and in this story there were some loose ends hanging. Also, in the final two or so pages, Sam's girl friend Dina discloses a secret to him which makes him furious and has him stalking off, but the two make up in the next paragraph. it just seemed like too easy a way to wrap up the story. Nit-picking, yes, but it did leave me slightly disappointed at the end, after a very exciting ride.… (mer)

This my first in this kind of book dealing with art and history. It a good book and interesting. It deals with Germany and take over of Europe in the 1940's. I liked the idea of the painting talking and telling detail about his owners. That what is been so neat about it. I love the fact that Giovanni started with a discovery of stolen art.

Giovanni has some family problems that it so funny in a way that he find a discovery to lift his spirit. The author was good and i enjoyed the book. I rate this book at 4 1/2 stars. Those the painting stories about himself is so funny that you want to laugh. It makes you want to find out more of they mystery of the painting. If you want you can enter the giveaway try and win a copy.… (mer)