The Billion Dollar Sure Thing

I always enjoy financial thrillers and probably the best writer out there of them is Paul Erdman - I've never read one of his books and been disappointed and was keen to dive into another immersive tapestry from his imagination.

The Billion Dollar Sure Thing is set in the 1970s when the US Dollar has a fixed exchange rate and Gold has a fixed value set in US Dollars, the premise of the novel is the US has decided it will devalue it's dollar and change the value of gold. As such anyone holding US Dollars will end up with "less" money vs other currencies/commodities and anyone holding gold will be able to sell it for "more" US Dollars after the re-valuation/re-pricing.

So it's pretty important that the US Treasury keeps their plans a show more secret, oops, someone's copy has been stolen. Uh oh, Russia is shorting US Dollars hard, and postponing gold sales.... in comes a seedy financial broker and also collusion between Swiss & UK banks...

Entertaining read and karma has an unexpected hard bite at the closing of the narrative. show less

Paul Erdman is one of those authors that actually has substantial knowledge and experience with the subject of his novels (others being Frederick Forsyth or Robin Cook).

When someone who knows how things are done decides to write about it in form of thriller, you get so interested that even rather (I mean come on we are not kidding anyone :)) dry economic matter becomes very interesting and bursting with energy.

In this power ride we follow unscrupulous bankers and hustlers trying to make a substantial profit from the economic crisis in 1970s, fall of USD and rise of price of gold. It is always amazing to me how much things rely on a handshake and word of trust (ha!) so when rumors start to spread it takes a lot of effort on all sides to show more put back everything under control. And at the end, that is never rosy with authors like Mr. Erdman and novels like this, every action has a consequence and sometimes these consequences are the final ones. I especially liked very realistic reaction of the Swiss intelligence officer after he figures out that he was played.

Excellent novel, highly recommended. And after you read this treat yourself with Crash '79 from the same author. After that one sees that there is nothing new under the sun for the things that shake the planet. show less