I read Red Notice and found myself really annoyed by the author's enormous ego and self-righteousness. He talks about how Putin and his cronies have corruptly siphoned of massive amounts of wealth for themselves at the expense of ordinary Russians. Which is probably true. But then, without a hint of self awareness, has paragraphs about his 1990s investments in Russia like:
“Tell me, Mr. Prutkov—how much does one of those boats cost?” I asked,
“We got them for twenty million dollars new out of a shipyard in East
Germany,” he answered.
“How many do you have?”
“About a hundred.”
“And how old are they?”
“Seven years on average.”
...
I was amazed. These people had hired me to advise them on whether they should exercise their right under the Russian privatization program to purchase 51 percent of the fleet for $2.5 million. Two and a half million dollars! For a half stake in over a billion dollars’ worth of ships! Of course they should! It was a no-brainer. I couldn’t understand why they needed anyone to tell them this. More than anything, I wished I could have joined them in buying the 51 percent.
Where does he think deals like this come from? His buddy Prutkov was obviously paying someone off. He also tries to paint Khodorkovsky as some kind of a saint which is not true at all (the only reason he owned Yukos to begin with was because he bought it for 90% off in a rigged auction). Later I found some reporting from Der Spiegel which casts some doubt on his side of the Magnitsky story too. I don't know if this guy just gets off on writing opeds and getting profiled by the WSJ or what but I get the impression he's not telling everything about his little "adventure" in Russia.