“This isn’t a buddy cop movie,” FBI agent Jameson Danner tells corporate fixer Mackenzie Clyde, who’s been called in to help investigate the murder of Trevor Canon, the CEO of a Silicon Valley tech startup called Journy—“the biggest, buzziest startup on the planet.” “We don’t partner with amateurs,” Danner adds. “Especially not a [venture capital] lawyer with zero criminal training.”
That’s the initial standoff—the first of many—in Jakob Kerr’s fast-paced debut mystery, Dead Money. Kerr’s background as a lawyer and communications exec (he was one of the first Airbnb employees) lends a glamorous, galling and sometimes humorous authenticity to Dead Money’s exploration of high-stakes finance. At a Warriors basketball game, for instance, Mackenzie observes “rich white people of every size and shape . . . a parade of expensive labels and exposed ankles. Outside of Danner and the players on the court, Mackenzie couldn’t find a single man who appeared to be wearing socks.”
Mackenzie works for Roger Hammersmith, Journy’s biggest investor, who could lose every cent he poured into the startup now that Canon’s been shot between the eyes in his private office. To make matters even more uncertain, Canon changed his will shortly before his death, inserting a “dead money” provision that freezes his company’s assets until someone is tried for his murder.
Only the company’s board of directors, it seems, had access to Canon’s sanctum. As Mackenzie and Danner examine their potential motives and alibis, the pair’s divergent upbringings emerge. Danner is the son of the Senate minority leader, while Mackenzie was raised by a single mom. At 6-feet-2-inches, she towers over many of her peers both in height and intelligence. She has blazed a bold path for herself, and she’s not done yet. Kerr skillfully increases readers’ knowledge of Mackenzie’s past by interspersing chapters that not only reveal her background, but shed tantalizing light on her ultimate goals.
As the danger and tensions rise, Dead Money is full of creative and timely surprises—along with numerous plot twists—leading up to a helluva concluding action scene that plays out in a memorably dramatic setting.
