I struggled to make my way through this book, it was too on the nose and given the current climate I did not appreciate the case of characters.

The book was very well written and flowed well. The plot was great. Everything I thought it would be from the description

The Accidental Oligarch: A Ukrainian Saga by David Hoffman This is such a timely novel as it is about a young man- Yuri Yavlinsky who cleans up after elephants in the Kyiv Zoo who accidently become an Oligarch just before the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution. He becomes an oligarch because he had sold his passport and it turns out to a real oligarch had used his name and signature as the owner of multiple off shore shell companies around the world. Dora Osatinskyaya an American/Ukrainian lawyer who is head of an anti-corruption campaign is able to convince Yuri to join her to bring down the Oligarch Victor Raskolnovitch. Ok so far? At this point one has to suspend logic and just enjoy the story which contains many real characters who make cameos. There is Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, D. Trump, Lev Parnas, Oleg Deripaska and even that famous Ukrainian TV Star- Vlodoymyr Zalenskyy. Somehow Yuri is able to transfer 1B dollars from the real oligarch’s accounts to a new shell company via Mossack Fonseca that was famous for a few years for the Panama Papers. All the while the story continues with Yuri out-smarting Victor and his henchmen along with Russians who also get in the act. It is a fun read and at the same time there is a telling story by Mr. Hoffman of the corruption as well as the heroic efforts of the Ukrainian people. An excellent story and it ends well. Yuri gets the girl and goes back to now running the zoo. Ukraine is a source for serious reflection right now but an occasional story that ends well is welcome.

What a timely novel. This story starts between the Orange Revolution and the Maidan as a young man with artistic talent but very little money, living with his younger rebellious sister, great-grandmother, and violently abusive father. He learns his manual labor position at the zoo has just been eliminated, as yet another public resource is looted by the oligarchic replacement of a young but fragile democracy movement, courtesy of Vladimir Putin. But his future is more adventurous than he thought as he teams up to help an anti-corruption activist (and romantic interest) find a way to uncover and steal a fortune from an oligarch, thanks to a leaked report about money laundering. After a lot of travel and near-escapes readers return to Kiev to witness the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.

It's a little odd to read a work of fiction in which major players in the Trump-Ukraine shenanigans (Paul Manafort makes an early appearance) and in the political situation that has led to the present, perilous moment (with an appearance by Volodimir Zelinskyy), like somebody spilled a newspaper into my book. That said, it's an interesting way to get a fictional ring-side seat that can be illuminating about a country that didn't used to be front page news, even when it was worthy of it. On the downside, the characters (the fictional ones) while memorably distinct are sometimes hobbled by shallow character development, especially around how people experience emotions. It's a little cartoony at times, and some of the plot elements didn't make sense to me. Would MI5 be okay with letting someone who fraudulently emptied a bank account full of stolen money help him spend it on luxury goods as if it was now legally his? I know the City is notoriously cozy with laundered wealth, but there are laws and limits to the City's coziness - or at least that could have been handled better so it didn't strain the belief-suspension bridge. The open-ended bit of the happy ending was a nice touch of realism, though.

Simply as fiction, I would not rate this book too generously. Extra points for earnestness, background knowledge, and timeliness.