Brunner in the Black (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798262559213)

"A vast and immersive international crime thriller... Lenya is a brilliant protagonist... Nichols manages to pack the last 50 years of European conflict and interconnection into her personal history... As the story unfolds, the vision of our tenuous global economy and democratic order that emerges is more terrifying than anything hidden in a Liechtenstein bank. Readers will undoubtedly look forward to Lenya's next case." - Kirkus Reviews

"Nichols's geopolitical thriller moves at breakneck speed, as nimble and relentless as protagonist Lenya Fischer, a tenacious Stasi agent turned private investigator." - BookLife by Publishers Weekly

"It's got a great throwback vibe that calls to mind ace '70s conspiracy thriller writers like Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follett, and Robert Ludlum ... Lenya is a first-rate character. She's part Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, part James Bond, and part John Wick wrapped in the body of a sixtysomething woman ... They're younger, but picture Cate Blanchett (56) or Charlize Theron (50) as Lenya." - The Optionist

"Lenya's not your typical heroine... She's a woman who commands respect in a field built for men. She's not chasing redemption, she enforces her own kind of justice, and she's terrifyingly good at it. I loved how Nichols doesn't let age soften her character. Loyal, brave, relentless, and dangerously smart, she navigates the chaos with the agility of someone half her age..." - Independent Book Review

LENYA FISCHER IS THE PRIVATE EYE EQUIVALENT OF A PIRATE

She was in Stasi in the Eighties and never unlearned their ruthless ways.

Now she's 63 and hired to dig up dirt on Peter Brunner's Austrian lumber company Brunner Group. The client is his jealous cousin Ilsa.

Lenya needs her lover Orell Schneider's network since opaque Liechtenstein foundations own Brunner Group and hide its blackest secrets. Orell used to head up Liechtenstein's financial intelligence unit and did the same for Vatican City until he fled the Pope's trumped up charges against him. She brings him in, a car bomb kills him, and she comes home to find her house trashed and her cat hanging from a noose of piano wire. Everything is connected.

Now it's only justice for Orell or death as Lenya chases dirty drug and gun money into Brunner Group, the Vatican Bank, and the pockets of a corrupt European establishment cornered like rats by the millions of protestors filling the streets. Globalization's upperworld criminals may just have picked the wrong fräulein to fool with.

[Cover Art by Jet Purdie]

About the Author

Will Nichols is a career private investigator. He currently serves as director of investigations at a boutique law firm specializing in international fraud-related asset recovery. Prior to this, Will spent years at a corporate intelligence firm where he reported directly to a former head of the Near East Division at the CIA's Directorate of Operations as well as a former head of the financial intelligence units of Liechtenstein and Vatican City. He began his career as a surveillance operative working cheating spouses and insurance fraud cases.

Will's grad school paper on amphetamine trafficking in the Syrian war was referenced in the French edition of Vanity Fair. His fiction writing has appeared in the UK literary magazine Ambit.

Born in Boston, Will lived for decades in the Washington, DC metropolitan area before a recent move to Miami.

Author: Will Nichols
ISBN-13: 9798262559213
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 01/05/2026
Pages: 332
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.74d

Review Citation(s):
PW Booklife Reviews 12/01/2025