Rudiger Stories
About two years ago I wrote a short story, Rudiger, and a blog about it, Mark Knopfler, Rüdiger and Me (read it here), that introduced the character of John Rudiger, fugitive financier. I titled the story and created John Rudiger based on emotions evoked by a song called “Rüdiger” by Mark Knopfler (See Knopfler perform it here.) In Rudiger, John Rudiger is living under an alias in Antigua. He ran off with close to $100 million from his hedge fund and is now down to his last $2 million. Katie Dolan, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, is sent to Antigua to try to get enough evidence to extradite Rudiger back to the U.S. to stand trial. Rudiger recruits her to help him retrieve $50 million of bearer bonds from a safe deposit box in New York.
Since then I’ve gotten to know Rudiger better, including writing a novel about Rudiger’s exploits after the Rudiger short story, Spin Move (see below).
I’ve also released two short stories and two novellas that are prequels to the Rudiger short story. The short stories are Rudiger Comes Alive and Rudiger in the Islands. The novellas are Rudiger in Peril and Rudiger on the Streets.
All five Rudiger stories are available in the collection, Rudiger Stories, or individually. The collection is priced at $3.99 and the individual stories are $0.99 each. I hope you’ll give them a try. I had great fun writing them, including enjoying some oddball secondary characters in Rudiger’s new home in Antigua.
The five Rudiger stories are a total of 95,000 words, comparable to a full-length novel.
Buy Rudiger Stories: Buy US Buy UK
In Rudiger Comes Alive, hotshot Wall Streeter Walter Conklin is a wunderkind hedge fund manager who runs a $1 billion technology fund. He’s on a roll until his CFO cooks the books to overstate their results to raise more money. The only way out for Conklin is to insist his CFO keep cooking them until he can equal those returns. But the Feds are on to him, so Conklin needs to act fast before they can throw him in jail—just as the NASDAQ crashes from its historic highs. In the end, Conklin needs to come to terms with the markets, his smart-mouthed wife, and Charlie Holden, Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York.
Rudiger Comes Aliveis a 13,000 word short story, chronologically the first of the Rudiger stories.
Read a sample of Rudiger Comes Alive
Buy Rudiger Comes Alive: Buy US Buy UK
In Rudiger in the Islands, Rudiger adopts Antigua as his new home: he’s building a house and settling in to the islands way of life. Then Charlie Holden, Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, gets a tip and sends one of his staff lawyers down to get the goods on Rudiger and extradite him to stand trial. In order to outwit Holden and his man, Rudiger needs to establish his credentials as an Antiguan national, so he enlists the help of the double-dealing local police—who will sell their allegiance to the highest bidder. Rudiger is forced to think on the fly to adapt to the machinations of both parties as he improvises to try to stay out of jail.
Rudiger in the Islands is a 20,000 word short story, chronologically the second of the Rudiger stories.
Read a sample of Rudiger in the Islands
Buy Rudiger in the Islands: Buy US Buy UK
In Rudiger in Peril, Rudiger has settled into Antigua as his new home. He gets a surprising phone call from Charlie Holden, Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, who’s been trying to extradite Rudiger back to the U.S. to stand trial. Holden tells Rudiger his former partner and CFO has been murdered in the U.S. by one of Rudiger’s hedge fund investors who lost millions and is out for revenge. And the investor’s hired killer is now in Antigua stalking Rudiger. Rudiger is forced to align himself with Holden as an unlikely ally as he tries to figure out which of his investors could be after him and help Holden stop him—before the hitman catches up with Rudiger.
Rudiger in Peril is a 28,000 word novella, chronologically the third of the Rudiger stories.
Read a sample of Rudiger in Peril
Buy Rudiger in Peril: Buy US Buy UK
In Rudiger on the Streets, Rudiger has finally settled into a peaceful existence in Antigua. No more Wall Street Journal articles revisiting his financial scandal. No more attempts by the U.S. Attorney to extradite him. No more local police hassles about his alias. But his repose is shattered when his housekeeper gets scammed out of her life savings by two cons. Rudiger’s plan to get even take him into the belly of Antigua’s underworld, where he enlists the help of a ghetto crime boss. There, he’s forced to rely on the dirty tricks he learned in his youth on the mean streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. And once he plunges into this world of double-dealers, swindlers and murderers, he realizes there’s no turning back.
Rudiger on the Streets is a 24,000 word novella, chronologically the fourth of the Rudiger stories.
Read a sample of Rudiger on the Streets
Buy Rudiger on the Streets: Buy US Buy UK
In Rudiger, John Rudiger is now a long-term fugitive financier who’s been living under his alias in Antigua for 10 years. He’s down to his last $2 million. Katie Dolan, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, is sent to Antigua to try to get enough evidence to extradite Rudiger back to the U.S. to stand trial. Rudiger recruits her to help him retrieve $50 million of bearer bonds from a safe deposit box in New York. Katie is no dope, and neither is Rudiger, and each one has to figure out who’s scamming who as they work their plan to sneak the bonds out from under the nose of Charlie Holden, Katie’s boss, the Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, who’s wise to both of them.
Rudiger is a 10,000 word short story, chronologically the fifth of the Rudiger stories.
It’s a year after Rudiger and Katie’s tryst in New York, and now the Antiguan officials are demanding ever more exorbitant payouts to maintain his cover. He’s running out of money, in part because Katie conned him out of millions. Katie is holed up with her ailing father in Cape Verde, an Island paradise off the coast of Africa that conveniently lacks an extradition treaty with the U.S., an idea she took right out of Rudiger’s playbook. Despite her double cross, Rudiger is still hot for Katie, and he knows just where to find her when he leaves Antigua. But U.S. Attorney Charlie Holden is still hovering in the background, dead set on catching them both. Even worse, Katie’s been sucked in by a crooked Swiss banker and he’s conned her out of Rudiger’s money. Can they get it back and escape before it’s too late?
SIGN-UP TO BE AN INSIDER