9-2-26
Dear Partners in Thought,
I felt that it would be a nice break to stay away a little bit from writing about the intense geopolitical landscape of our times, so decided to go back to Book Notes after a break of 18 months post-Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy Inc. In doing so and (unsurprisingly if I may be facetious) I decided to cover a combined thriller and spy novel that would take us to a place I recently covered in my pieces: Davos, the location of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the supreme gathering of the world leaders in all sectors since 1971.
There is a great thriller-spy novel just published by a 30+ year friend and former colleague/partner of mine, whom I met at the EBRD as he was in the Chief Economist Office while I was making direct investments in the CEE financial sector in the 1990s. Thierry Malleret went on to work as a top organiser of the World Economic Forum in Davos in the 2000s, making his last novel very relevant, while he launched his own mini-Davos annual event in Chamonix and kept providing thorough world views with his Monthly Barometer since the early 2010s (while co-authoring two books with the WEF founder Klaus Schwab in recent times). We also worked together in the late 2010s as lead investors in a small cybersecurity start-up focused on protecting supply chains.
Deaths at Davos 3.0 is actually the third opus of a great story that started with two previous and shorter books (Deaths at Davos and Deaths at Davos 2.0) covering the 2024 and 2025 Annual Meetings of the Circle (a different name for the WEF gathering) led by a different leader nicknamed the Don (no links to The Godfather). Deaths at Davos 3.0 is focused on the last Annual Meeting that took place in January 2026. While one should read the first two volumes, also to know better the main characters like Olena, a fierce Ukrainian lady patriot, and Philip, a very experienced British intelligence officer, it is also very possible to read only the third volume as it is where the core story takes place and unfolds. On a side note, the books describe in detail the well-known Davos event and its culture but also its location and Chamonix, which provide for an unsurprisingly beautiful geographical background. I will keep the plot under wraps so it is more enjoyable but will stress a few of its key features.
The book, which covers the last Davos “Circle” event in January 2026, involves many characters who are well known, such as President Trump and many actual business and other leaders, at times introduced by their first names but who are highly recognisable. The dual plot, which I will keep confidential, involves on one hand the MAGA leadership desire to take over the Davos Circle – helped by some of its soul-losing organisers focused on luring Trump at all costs – as well as a Russian intelligence op driven by an unforeseen closer US-Russia relationship, involving all the acronyms which we know (FSB, GRU, SVR), but also those lesser known of the Ukrainian services (GUR, SBU). It is clear that Malleret’s exposure to the Davos world and many of its participants, including the many intelligence services roaming around, was very helpful in crafting a great plot for Davos 3.0.
Malleret’s description of Trump’s mannerisms and usual speaking style is simply amazing as is the depiction of the Big Tech Bros, whom I often cover, stressing so well their sycophancy clearly aimed at total support for their businesses. A few characters, like a young and colourful very well-born New York Upper East Side Thomas, a “would be” Trump nephew, gives us a sad but accurate description of some of the American elite who are close to the president and how he, like others, got to be a Special Envoy (Thomas for Europe in Geneva in the novel) – without any clear competence for it, but for some blood line or past business association as seen with those working on self-serving peace in the Middle East or Ukraine.
This novel touches on the key features of a new and harsh world we see developing. At some point, some key Trump “Free Speech – first Amendment” supporters, strong libertarians and pragmatically converted and anti-regulation Big Tech leaders gather in a hotel (not yet all invited to the Circle’s Annual Meeting) trying to promote the “MAGAfication” of Europe while finding Russia a natural partner, also given its image as the deemed last true Christian nation on Earth. We see an alliance of techno-libertarians and a religious hard right that also reshapes geopolitics, driven by a bond against globalism, feminism, multiculturalism and secular liberalism with an increasingly hostile stance against a “corrupt” Ukraine and decaying LGBTQ and woke-diseased Western Europe. While a novel, Death at Davos makes one think about the latest geopolitical developments with an increasingly autocratic and more Putin-tolerant, if not yet friendly, Trump 2.0 – even allowing Moscow to push for a Molotov-Ribbentrop deal in Ukraine while offering economic deals to America in 2026 (also to save itself from drowning), so the two nations could get closer and indeed reshape geopolitics.
One of the interesting features of the novel is how some Western intelligence agencies (at times not yet in close touch with their own governments) will undertake missions focused on Trump associates, also given the official change of the US approach to Europe and NATO and the radical key staff changes experienced at the CIA and the like. In many ways, it is as if Malleret was able to produce a great novel as the Greenland story unfolded and European trust in America was lost while Trump’s Washington would want to get closer to Moscow while retreating from its continental roots, this also driven by Trump’s admiration for the Russian leader. And unsurprisingly, the book shows the never stopping Russian intelligence drive to export their expert disinformation and hybrid warfare across Europe as if it were existential and a core escalation duty for a gradually war-weakened Russia as opposed to working sensibly between nations. Deaths at Davos 3.0 is a great novel reflecting our new times and, in many ways, making us also realise that Europe needs to be more in charge of its future, all the more on the defence front.
I will let you enjoy a great and enjoyable story which is also full of often new geostrategic features, many depressing for those who liked globalisation and the old American leader of the Free World. You can order it or, for an even better read, all three volumes of the trilogy, on Amazon (and also help the likely declining brand in Europe if, again, I may be facetious).
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 