Red Bottom Line

by Kevin Maney

It's the dawn of the 1990s, and the Soviet Union is crumbling and beginning to haphazardly experiment with capitalism. Jeff Teneson, an impetuous yet struggling American management consultant, thinks he sees an opportunity to travel to Moscow to cut deals, make money and finally prove himself. But as soon as he lands there, Jeff gets caught in a tug of war between two newly-formed and rickety Moscow businesses. One is run by ex-KGB agents who still operate like KGB agents. The other employs two ambitious yet naïve young Russians, Maxim and Natasha, who launch a plot to steal Jeff away from the KGB guys – which turns out to be a dangerous miscalculation. Their situation gets more complicated when Jeff falls for Natasha, and everybody becomes confused about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The details in the novel about life in Moscow at that time may be hard to believe now, but they are based on the author's observations when he was a journalist covering the dismantling of the Soviet Union. The story is made up, but the facts are true. It was a period of chaos and deprivation, and of uncertainty over what the nation would become. Thugs ran the economy. Boris Yeltsin was a disastrous leader. Anything could happen, and it did – often in quirky and funny ways.Red Bottom Line will take you on a roller-coaster ride through a strange and unique moment in history.

272 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2024

Reviews

[Chris Yoko · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fun read that starts with a great hook and develops interesting characters through to the end. Also released at an interesting time, providing some societal insight into Russian culture coming out of the soviet union.

[Ellen Neuborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young American consultant, suffering a quarter life crisis, decides to take advantage of the major global business trend of his era – the tumultuous shift from the Soviet state-run economy to a free market Russia. But within minutes of landing in Moscow, our affable and utterly unprepared hero is swept up in a dangerous mix of ambition and desperation he only half understands. He soon finds he has a lot more than money to lose. The author covered this period of transformation in Russia as a journalist and his novel is full of detail that can only be gathered from a front row seat to this history.

Fast paced and often hilarious, this is a fun read with a useful business lesson: If you're thinking of running off to join the latest hot trend (AI? Digital currency?) take a breath. Chances are, you don't know what you don't know.