Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was denied entry to the country after exposing widespread corruption. Since 2009, when his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in Russian police custody, he has been leading a global campaign to expose human rights abuses endemic in Russia. Consequentially, the 'Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act' was signed into US law in 2012, imposing visa bans and asset freezes on certain officials involved in Magnitsky's death. Browder is currently working to have similar legislation passed across the European Union and Canada.
Reads like a classic thriller, with an everyman hero alone and in danger in a hostile foreign city ... but it's all true, and it's a story that needs to be told. Lee Child The story of Sergei Magnitsky's life and death is a shocking true-life thriller, and Bill Browder was the man to write it. Tom Stoppard A sizzling account of Mr Browder's rise, fall and metamorphosis from bombastic financier to renowned human-rights activist ... Reads more like a financial thriller than a real-life story. The Economist An unburdening, a witness statement and a thriller all at the same time ... Electrifying ... One heck of a read. -- Giles Whittell The Times An expose of years of state-sponsored torture and murder ... this story of courage combined with a dash of obsessiveness is about the real here and now. -- Sonia Purnell The Independent