The first whiff of this comes when the story’s ostensible hero, Alex Godman ( James Norton ), a hedge-fund manager in financial trouble not of his making, is lectured by his girlfriend and expected fiancée. She’s shattered by what she sees as Alex’s abandonment of the high principles the two supposedly held dear. There’s no more telling symbol of the price of abandoned principles than the instrument used to kill a member of Alex’s family. The murder is a signal that the Godman family is far from safe in London—old ties with a long reach remain in Russia. Unappeasable in his fury at anyone he thinks has crossed him, he has become the Godman family’s most implacable enemy.

Source: Wall Street Journal February 22, 2018 22:18 UTC