Forged metal - Lesley Campbell

Alexandra Brookes, successful head of futures trading at Wellington, is stable. But when in 1991 she visits the mines and furnaces of industrial Siberia, she is appalled by the hellish working conditions. The numbers on her computer screen are transformed into something more than a cold multi-million-dollar deal. People are dying to produce the metals she trades with negligence.

As Alex explores the Russian metal markets, she realizes that the fall of communism has swept away all the rules as Western industrialists are exploiting the Russians, negotiating contracts at way below their true value. In the cut-throat world of futures trading, Alex decides to assist the beleaguered Russians. Together with her lover and fellow trader, Sol Bergman, and the taciturn Russian Maxim Volkov, she devises a brilliant trading strategy.

But before long, Alex discovers that the Russians play by their own set of rules and that mindless violence is their trump card. As the deadline for the deal approaches, the violence escalates and Alex registers that any decision she makes could have life-threatening consequences for everyone concerned.