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<\/a>A former banker whose banking career ended when his whistleblowing against his employer was covered up by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Christmas wove his real-life experiences into his novel KGB Banker,\u00a0<\/em>co-written with William Burton McCormick.<\/p>\nThe novel has just been recognized by Best Thrillers as the \u201cBest Conspiracy Thriller of 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information, visit the Best Thrillers website.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After starting his banking career in the U.S., Christmas had an opportunity to go to work for the largest bank in Latvia as their Western representative.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was exciting for me, given my Latvian heritage,\u201d Christmas said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was eager to get involved in Latvia\u2019s transformation from a communist system to a free-market system, but sadly, it turned out that Latvia became an oligarchic, kleptocratic system, similar to Russia and even with some of the same oligarchs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When he learned about insiders embezzling assets and Kremlin-linked money-laundering, Christmas became a whistleblower.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whistleblowing didn\u2019t turn out as I expected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Although he expected Latvian authorities to use the information to save themselves billions of Euros, the government instead organized a cover-up with a publicly funded development bank that ended up causing the public to lose even more money, with the bankers also looting Ukraine and Moldova, Christmas said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, author Bill McCormick had spent years living in Latvia and Ukraine and wrote a popular historical novel about Latvia.<\/p>\n When the two men met, they decided to collaborate on a political\/high-finance thriller that fictionalized their experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cWe agreed that the storyline of a bank whistleblower fighting a corrupt bank, and then having to fight the government because the government sided with the corrupt bank, would make a terrific thriller,\u201d Christmas said.<\/p>\n The co-authors also agreed that it made sense to fictionalize the story, rather than to write a nonfiction book directly about Christmas\u2019 experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to mix up the names, actions, scenes such that we could avoid angering the real criminals. We thought that would work out perfectly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Published by Milford House Press, the 314-page political thriller is available in paperback and as an ebook.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Christmas describes his novel on Amazon:<\/p>\n “A return trip to the land of his ancestors is about to turn deadly for one whistleblowing Chicago banker.<\/p>\n When financial executive Bob Vanags takes a job at ominous Turaida Bank in Latvia, he hopes to learn of his heritage and to fight economic fraud in Eastern Europe. Instead, Bob finds himself pulled into a world of political intrigue, blackmail, and murder.<\/p>\n Aided by his son David, his beautiful colleague Agnese, and a fearless Latvian journalist named Santa Ezeri\u0146a, Bob begins to unravel his employer\u2019s darkest secrets, discovering their sins and conspiracies beyond his wildest fears. Secrets that Turaida wants to keep hidden, even at the cost of Bob\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Now framed for murder by Turaida operatives, Bob must go on the run to clear his name, protect his family, and reveal the plot to the world before governments topple and war ignites in Europe.\u00a0KGB Banker\u00a0is a pulse-pounding international thriller spanning the globe from Latvia to Iceland, Moscow to America, Ukraine to the Estonian islands and back again.\u201d<\/p>\n Note: Because KGB Banker\u00a0<\/em>is not science fiction, it was not eligible for nomination for the Prometheus Awards. *\u00a0Watch\u00a0 <\/strong>videos <\/strong>of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/strong><\/a> * Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most Libertarian Futurist Society members enjoy reading fiction, but few write it. John Christmas, a veteran LFS member and Best Novel finalist judge based in Europe, does both. A former banker whose banking career ended when his whistleblowing against his employer was covered up by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Christmas wove his … Continue reading KGB Banker: Veteran LFS judge John Christmas recognized for his conspiracy thriller<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,10],"tags":[230,121,1710,1711,1712],"class_list":["post-5102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-news","tag-eastern-europe","tag-john-christmas","tag-kgb-banker","tag-latvia","tag-william-burton-mccormick"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1ki","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5102"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5175,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions\/5175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n
\nIf it had been, Christmas would have had to step down from his judging position, at least for that year. Under long-established LFS conflict-of-interest rules, no one can serve as a Prometheus judge if one of their eligible works is nominated for the award that year.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n