LOUISE MOSCOW

       Louise Moscow is an investment banker.
       She is very successful one. Though her first love was computer science, she followed her father's suggestion and majored in banking, eventually getting an MBA from Harvard. Soon a job at J.P.Morgan came and within five years she was a senior vice president. She would continue her extremely impressive rise after that.
       Her entry into the very dangerous world of espionage came when she just happens upon some quite shady activity at the company she is hired by and that in turns leads to both the FBI and the CIA pressuring her into working with them. With very little warning she goes from juggling numbers to dodging bullets.
       We learn early on that since childhood, Moscow had "always been shy and awkward in public" and that she felt most comfortable when behind a computer screen looking at numbers that meant more to her than they did to most people. Her skills with spreadsheets and ledgers and dealings with high dollar amounts would help her overcome her nerves and when she was in her element, she was in charge. Interestingly, for someone who is at heart still a shy person, when pushed or threatened, her anger rises up and she can prove to be a very dangeroud adversary.
       The activities we follow Moscow in take place in the 90's. The first adventure is at the very beginning of the decade and the second second, after a short build-up, happens at the very end of that period up into the first couple years of the next. The difference in Moscow between the two is quite interesting. As confident as she is in the first, she is extremely so in the second.

       On her website's bio, the description of this series reads, "Louise Moscow mysteries are high concept noir thrillers inspired by real-life banking scandals. [The author] is able to spin complex tales of international finance while making it feel like classic mystery storytelling."
       That really nails it. I started the first adventure and was only a couple pages into it before the name of the firm Moscow is joining rang a bell. It was forced into liquidation in the early 90's and this is a fictionalized account of the goings on that brought it down. I like to pretend I understand a bit of high finance (I don't) so I enjoyed pretending I understood what was going on or maybe (more likely) the author did a good job at explaining things.