Excerpt from Red Notice by Bill Browder, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When I couldn't stand it any longer, I called Sir Roderic Lyne, the former British ambassador to Russia who advised HSBC, to see if he had any insights. He was surprised that Smith had even suggested putting my issue on the prime minister's agenda and encouraged me to keep my expectations low. Based on his experience, issues always emerged at summits that trumped the carefully crafted agendas.

I tried to take his advice, but six days before the summit, Elena and I went to have lunch at Richoux, a restaurant on Circus Road in St. John's Wood. As we sat at our table, she casually picked up the Sunday Observer and flipped through it. Her eyes lit up as she said, "Bill, look at this headline: 'Blair to Raise Fund Manager's Case with Putin'!" I grabbed the paper from her and started reading. It was a total confirmation of what Smith had discussed with me. The most salient sentence was to the point: "The prime minister will use the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg next weekend to ask Russia's president to lift all restrictions on Browder."

Elena looked at me in shock. "This is amazing," she said.

The Observer article also surprised my clients, and some started to postpone their redemption decisions until after the G8.

My spirits were as high as they could be, but then, three days before the summit, Vadim pulled me aside. "Bill, you need to see this." He pointed to a Bloomberg headline on his computer screen. I leaned forward and scanned a story about Hezbollah militants in Lebanon who'd fired antitank missiles into Israel. Three Israeli soldiers were dead, and five others had been kidnapped and taken into Lebanon.

"What does this have to do with us?" I asked incredulously.

"I'm not sure, but this looks like a war's starting in the Middle East. That may distract Blair from bringing up your visa discussion at the G8."

Sure enough, the following day Israel launched air strikes on targets in Lebanon, including the Beirut airport, resulting in forty-four civilian deaths. Russia, France, Britain, and Italy immediately criticized Israel for a "disproportionate" use of force, and the United States publicly condemned the Hezbollah militants. Vadim was right. The G8 summit might well disintegrate into a frantic Middle East peace summit, with Blair's intended agenda jettisoned.

As the summit began on Saturday, I didn't know what was going to happen, and I couldn't reach anyone in the British government over the weekend. The summit dragged on, but all the news reports were about Israel and Lebanon—nothing about my visa.

As the summit wrapped up, Putin was scheduled to give the concluding press conference. The room was packed. Hundreds of journalists from across the globe were all hoping for their chance to ask Putin a question.

After about twenty minutes of softball questions, Putin called on Catherine Belton, a pretty, diminutive, thirty-three-year-old British journalist at the Moscow Times. She took the microphone and tentatively addressed Putin. "Bill Browder was recently denied a Russian entry visa. Many investors and Western diplomats are concerned about this and don't understand why this happened. Can you explain why he was denied an entry visa without any explanation?" She then sat, held her notebook on her knees, and awaited his answer.

The room went quiet. Everyone knew that Putin had been caught off guard. He let a couple seconds pass before uttering, "Please say it again. Who exactly was denied a visa?"

Catherine stood back up. "Bill Browder. He is CEO of the Hermitage Fund, which is the biggest investor in the Russian stock market. And I believe the prime minister of the United Kingdom might have discussed this with you today."

Putin frowned and replied tartly, "Well, to be honest I don't know for what reasons any particular individual may be denied entry into the Russian Federation. I imagine that man may have violated our country's laws."

Excerpted from Red Notice by Bill Browder. Copyright © 2015 by Bill Browder. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.