The strange case of the Georgian oligarch.

For the past year, the legal community in Gibraltar has been abuzz with a case that has unfolded behind closed doors in the Supreme Court. The hearings were in private, with press and public alike locked out. Few details leaked. Something about Russians and a row over a huge inheritance. It was obvious the case was big. For weeks at a time, the Supreme Court was crowded with high-flying lawyers from the UK and beyond who trooped in wheeling boxes of papers and documents. Oh to have been a fly on that wall.

This month, Vanity Fair magazine published a riveting article by a formidable journalist called Suzanna Andrews. Here's a taster, in her own words:

The sudden death in February 2008 of Badri Patarkatsishvili, Georgia’s richest man, rocked the ruthless world of the Russian oligarchy, pitting his widow, Inna, against his partner, exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, in one of the biggest estate battles ever, and landing an American lawyer in a Belarusian penal colony. Talking to key players in New York and London, the author reports on suspected forgery, secret marriage, and an alleged private-jet kidnapping.

The dispute over Badri's estate is playing out in court cases around the globe—including in London, New York, Tbilisi, Moscow, and Gibraltar— and has led to bitterly contested accusations of fraud, theft, and forgery. The tale reads like something out of a spy thriller. Believe me, you couldn't make this stuff up. It's well worth a read.