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Deep Finesse

by Selwyn Kossuth

308 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1346; ISBN 1-4120-3518-x; US$25.50, C$30.00, EUR21.00, £15.00

In this exciting sequel to Weak Two, the same crooked lawyers hatch a new scheme to launder drug money into British Columbia through companies involved in deep sea treasure hunts.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book In the author's first novel, Weak Two, George Bertram of the Ontario Securities Commission and his duplicate bridge partner, Tony Phillips, manage to thwart an attempt to launder drug and other money into Ontario. In the sequel, Deep Finesse, the same crooks hatch another laundering scheme, this one involving deep sea treasure, the Vancouver Stock Exchange, a provicial minister of finance with unusual nocturnal habits, and a young woman who uses her personal claims to advance her business career. George Bertram and Tony Phillips team up with other regulators in North America and the plot moves swiftly towards a horrifying climax.

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About the Author Selwyn Kossuth was born in South Africa and was educated at the University of Stellenbosch and Oxford University. He came to Canada with his family in 1980 and lives with his wife in Mississauga. He is a former vice-president and director of corporate finance with a major Toronto securities firm, a former executive director of the Ontario Securities Commission and past President and CEO of the Investment Funds Institute of Canada. He is currently a financial consultant and is an avid duplicate bridge aficionado. He and his wife enjoy their weekend cottage in the Georgian Triangle of rural Ontario.

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Excerpts

Chapter 1

The four men sat round the table in one of the luxurious private dining rooms in New York's venerable Metropolitan Club. Situated at 5^th Avenue and East 60^th Street, the Metropolitan was the meeting place of many of the Big Apple's movers and shakers, like Bradley Fitzsimmon III, a senior partner in a New York mega legal factory. His firm had forged mergers with similar outfits around the world and appeared to be a flagship enterprise. In fact, the conglomerate was experiencing severe cash flow problems and had begun to rely on a growing number of less than sterling clients. One such client was Felix Latour, a swarthy and impeccably dressed lawyer from Bermuda. He was the only one of the four present who had not loosened his tie or removed his jacket while the club's somewhat dated air conditioners battled gamely against the city's near record humidex reading.

Although the New Yorker was the host of the lunch, Latour was clearly in charge. His small but very influential firm represented billions of dollars in drug money which flowed from a number of powerful Colombians, led by Don Felipe Santiago of Medellin. The laundering of these dollars was a constant challenge. Latour and Fitzsimmon had come close to engineering a coup of massive proportions, using a corporate set-up through post-apartheid South Africa and into the Ontario securities market, which was not particularly renowned for its vigorous and effective regulation. Unfortunately for them, the scheme had finally been thwarted by the enforcement director of the Ontario securities commission and his bridge partner, a young South African immigrant to Canada, who worked in mergers and acquisitions in one of Toronto's large bank-owned brokerages. So today's meeting had been set up specifically to look at new schemes for moving the Colombians' ever growing mound of dirty cash.

The third lawyer at the table was Scott Moffat, now an upwardly mobile partner with Marshall,White, the Toronto law firm "owned" by Fitzsimmon's organisation. His former boss was currently in the Kingston penitentiary, serving a long sentence for his involvement in the previous laundering scheme. Moffat had emerged from that affair smelling of roses and with a tidy sum in a Zurich numbered account. Never one to miss the boat, he had managed to convince both Toronto and Fitzsimmon that he was the person to take over the bulk of the jailbird's activities and he had done just that. "I was chatting to Bob Pierce who does the audit of AllSeasons," Scott now said to the others. "Brigham Bowie who owns most of the company's stock is very keen to get some kind of a listing on the Vancouver exchange. Pierce has set up a meeting for me with Bowie next week. Apparently Bowie is going to discuss the possibility of our firm becoming the AllSeasons' counsel. You may have seen in the press that he is getting some heat for some of the generous accounting treatment which AllSeasons gets from Pierce. Pierce has given me the heads up to have a couple of acquisition candidates to talk about, particularly anything involved in deep-sea treasure hunts. Apparently, Bowie likes that kind of thing and he's really keen on having a separate cash flow out west. If all goes smoothly, I reckon that his proposed Vancouver outfit could become the right vehicle for starting a substantial flow of funds into Canada."

The others nodded and the only non-lawyer, Barry Sinclair turned to Fitzsimmon and asked "I assume that it would probably be sensible for us to list Cormex on the Vancouver exchange as well?" He was referring to the auto parts company, located in Pittsburgh which was ostensibly owned by him. In fact, the true owners were now the new mafia in his Russian homeland whose appetite for money laundering was growing rapidly. "I think that would be great," replied the New Yorker. "And I'm sure that we can arrange for your people to get the agreed percentage of any funds flow which we manage to put in place through Scott's scheme." "Thanks," said Sinclair, "I'll let them know." Then Felix Latour asked Fitzsimmon "I take it that we now have the right pressure point in place out there?"

"No problem," grinned Fitzsimmon wolfishly, "We have the minister just where we want him." The other three nodded knowingly and sipped the excellent wine. "So I thought that in keeping with our fondness for duplicate bridge," said Fitzsimmon smiling at Latour, "we can christen this new scheme 'Deep Finesse'. Scott seems pretty certain that Bowie will find a deep sea outfit and all the time we'll be regularly finessing our poor minister's weaknesses." The Bermudan laughed and raised his glass.

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Catalogue Information

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