Coco's Gambit
This a tale of a super ambitious, super bright young woman, Coco, and Ian Blakely, a hedge fund manager who by chance becomes important in her life. Murder, sex and money intersect in this Southeast Asian thriller as Coco executes a strategy to get back an embarrassing painting, avoid being murdered by her enemy and make a ton of money. The novel takes place primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and Singapore. Along the way, as a bonus the reader picks up bits of local culture.
Ian Blakely, age 59, a Singapore-based American expat and billionaire hedge fund manager, buys a painting of a near nude Chinese girl. The painting is called Bad Girl. The painting until then had not been available to the public and Ian has no idea who the model is.
Ten years after posing for the painting, the girl, Coco age 30, is now the respectable wife of the elderly former head of the Army of Myanmar. The painting's existence is a threat and Coco wants it back. Coco starts by getting Ian to invest in a natural gas project in Myanmar that she is involved with. Once he was an investor, getting the painting back from Ian would be easy. A Brown Phi Beta Kappa and former Wall Streeter, Coco gets her painting back, outsmarts her opponents and eliminates her enemy, the adult daughter of her husband by his first marriage.
There are a number of high drama moments in this novel. We can start with the life or death scene on the cover. In a pitch dark jungle gunfight Coco fires a Glock concealed in her Chanel bag. The target is a Major in Myanmar's army who is secretly working for her enemy, her husband's adult daughter.
But there are other life and death moments. For example, Coco's assistant tries to poison her. Only the hunger of Coco's cat, who slurped up Coco's poisoned soup and fortuitously rolled over dead before Coco could eat it, saved Coco. Coco subsequently beats her assistant severely but resists her urge to kill her.
And then towards the end of the novel Coco is testifying before a Myanmar parliamentary committee. She faces off against what turn out to be some fake monks who interrupt the meeting and threaten to douse the whole meeting room with gasoline. Which of course they will ignite. Coco gambles they are fake and approaches them with a lit cigarette lighter. They flee.
But it's not all violence. The key sex scene is when Ian comes to visit Coco in her Singapore apartment. Ian by then knows Coco is the woman in Bad Girl. Coco opens her door attired as in the painting --practically nude but with some appropriate jewelry. She grabs Ian and holds a dagger up against his crotch. She then presents him with two scenarios as if she were still a Wall Street analyst. Scenario One is that he refuses to sell her the painting. In which case she will cut his balls off. Scenario Two is that he sell her the painting at cost and he could then fuck her brains out. Ian unsurprisingly chooses Scenario Two.
