Books · Arbitrage
When Fiction Gets Close to the Truth
In 2022, explosions destroyed the two Nord Stream gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea. Nobody claimed responsibility, and the question of who did it became one of the great mysteries of the war in Ukraine.
In my 2024 novel, Arbitrage, I offered my own answer. Writing it, I half feared someone would solve the real mystery before the book came out.
This week, according to The Wall Street Journal, a former Ukrainian special-forces officer went on trial in Hamburg. German prosecutors allege he led the attack, using a rented yacht named Andromeda to carry divers and explosives to the pipelines. He denies it, and Ukraine has long denied any involvement.
In Arbitrage, the saboteur is also a former Ukrainian officer, and he also works from a boat. In my early drafts, that boat was named Andromeda too. When reports of the real Andromeda surfaced, I renamed mine Cassiopeia, Andromeda's mother in Greek mythology.
The novel isn't a match. How the attack is carried out, and who pays for it, take the story somewhere the headlines haven't gone. That's where Arbitrage really begins: with what happened at Enron in 2001, two decades before the first explosion. It's a book about people, not pipelines.
The trial has only just begun, and the truth may still surprise us. In the meantime, the novel is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Arbitrage-Dennis-M-Lawler/dp/B0CVV1G651 (opens in new tab)