'The Capitalist' is a bit of a departure for the 'star' of Peter Steiner's Louis Morgon series. Rather than bumping heads against his former CIA nemeses, terrorists, FBI agents, and local authorities, in this one Morgon needs to exact some revenge against a Madoff-style financial guy who's ripped off people close to him. Morgon has a strong sense of what's right and certainly doesn't let the legal system get in his way.

Louis Morgon is an ex-CIA guy, long retired from the Company under unfortunate circumstances, living, or at least trying to lead, a quiet life in a small village in France. He's in his 70s, in decent shape for a guy his age, with a close woman friend, a nice garden, and a painting hobby. Unfortunately for him, through the novels in this series he's often interrupted by ghosts from his past. This time, his ultra-rich enemy is someone less lethal physically but still very dangerous. The thief has absconded to one of his many off-shore homes while his victims try to pick up the pieces and the authorities attempt to bring him to justice. Morgon hatches a plan to lure the miscreant back to where the legal system can do its work.

Steiner is a fine writer and has done a great job developing the characters in this series. His descriptions of the French village and Morgon's home life are wonderful. The only problem I've had with his novels is the elaborate nature of the solutions Morgon develops. Sure, he understands art, the legal system, the CIA, the FBI, human nature, and many other things, but when your approach to solving the problem of how to bring the swindler to justice involves aspects of every one of those things I think there is a relatively high potential for failure. In general, Morgon's a cautious dude but he comes up with some fairly fantastic plans that work well in a novel but I'd question in real life.

The Capitalist is a bit of a change of pace for the Louis Morgon character. Not bad, just different, and with Peter Steiner's great writing still a decent read. ( )