Money to Burn

With the exception of Christopher Reich's debut novel, Numbered Account and a few of his other books, and the lower-profile but equally good books by Michael Ridpath (Trading Reality, The Predator or Final Venture), there's been a dearth of good Wall Street thrillers out there. Which is a shame, because so much of what happens on the Street can only be done justice to in the form of fiction -- and suspense novels or thrillers, at that. Because, frankly, no one would believe even half of it otherwise...

I had high hopes for Grippando's shift from legal thrillers into this world, and he certainly delivers a fast-paced and lively narrative. (The timing of the book's release is also downright uncanny!) The plot revolves around the hapless show more Michael Cantella, who finds his personal life starts to crumble around him just as short-sellers begin attacking the investment bank for which he works, Saxton Silvers. Everything is going wrong: his wife, two days after throwing him a big birthday party, now wants a divorce; someone has stolen his identity and looted his accounts, and now he's being seen as responsible for the collapse of his own Wall Street firm. Could this be related to his brief marriage to Ivy, who died on their honeymoon in the West Indies?? Michael has never given up hope that she might still be alive, and there are growing hints that is indeed the case...

There are echoes of Harlan Coben's Tell No One: A Novel here, and a lot of the background has been ripped from the headlines, to quote a long-running television series. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but added to some downright improbable plot twists (and a plot that is complex enough, involving credit default swaps and naked short sales, to cause some readers to switch off), I ended up lowering my rating to 3.5 stars.

Still, for most readers, this will be both a good thriller and a good way of getting a bit of a handle on what happened on Wall Street. Those familiar with Wall Street or who have followed the headlines over the last two years will get a chuckle at the antics of a Jim Cramer-like television pundit who appears on "FNN" (aka CNBC), and the guest appearance by hedge fund mogul Steve Cohen's $8 million stuffed shark, but may find themselves skipping pages here or there as the context is explained. For some of them -- or for those who lost homes, jobs, savings, etc. during the debacle -- this may be either too familiar a story or a too painful one to read as fiction to be more than a three-star read. So I'd recommend it to thriller afficionados (those who have enjoyed Grippando's previous mysteries, or the earlier books by Christopher Reich would find much to like here) who haven't been battered by the Wall Street crisis, Bernie Madoff, etc., and who thus feel able to cope with a fictional treatment of the events we've all lived through.

If you're not ready to relive the experiences of the last few years, but want a good financial markets thriller, I'd suggest hunting down some of Michael Ridpath's books. Published in the late 1990s, for the most part, they hold up well, and I keep hoping he'll come back with some more. Those are definitely sold 4 to 4.5 star reads for me; most are out of print, but well worth seeking out. Or, if you want a real insider's take on a Wall Street mystery, look for The Golden Dog, by Scott Sipprelle, a former Morgan Stanley banker and later a hedge fund manager who played a role in the ouster of Phil Purcell, Morgan's former CEO. It's self-published, and not as polished in terms of style or structure, but Sipprelle knows all the ins and outs of Wall Street. show less

Investment banker Michael Cantella seems to have it all with a beautiful wife and a fantastic career. The only dark spot is the sudden disappearance of his first wife, wife of less than one day, four years ago. Then on his 35 birthday, all his investment accounts suddenly show zero balances. In rapid succession, his investment firm is on the brink of bankruptcy, his wife is asking for a divorce, the FBI investigating him, and he is receiving threatening text messages. Michael is desperate to clear his name, and clues keep leading him back to his first wife, Ivy. Filled with financial details and firmly rooted in the complexities and corruptions of the world of investment banking, Grippando ratchets up the intensity as he paints a show more compelling portrait of a man whose world is crumbling around him. show less

I really enjoyed this book. It combined finance with adventure and those are two things that normally don't combine. Fortunately in fiction anything can happen---and in this book, it does. Some of the criticisms of the book are that events get a mite too unlikely---and that's true, but I really enjoyed the book anyway. Grippando's writing is engaging enough that I was quite willing to suspend disbelief when the plot really took off.

Wall Street hotshot Michael Cantella is having a really bad 35th birthday, and it is only going to go downhill from there. In the first 50 pages of this novel, there are two mysteries: a woman and a fortune have both vanished, although not at the same time. I guessed one of the surprises early into the book but won't spoil it but telling you whether my guess was correct. There were lots of unexpected twists and turns in the book. Backstabbing financiers, shock-jock TV financial reporters, less-than-honorable people everywhere, the all-too-familiar collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market. The characters I liked best were Papa and Nana, the down-to-earth grandparents who raised Michael, ants instead of grasshoppers who never trusted show more those “Fonzie” schemes.

For a mystery, this is a relatively non-gruesome story except for a character named Burn who had a little too close a relationship with gasoline. I even learned more about the reasons for the financial world's meltdown. Overall, this is a mystery I thoroughly enjoyed. show less

Evidently this book was written just as the financial world meltdown was really getting started. Pretty uncanny timing, really. I think it was WAY over-plotted with so many twists and turns and characters who aren't what they seem to the point that it really detracted from what was essentially a pretty good story. Still, a good thriller with lots of interesting info on the holes in the financial market and sub-prime mortgage worlds to make a good read. I checked this out electronically from my local library. So cool!!

This was a good suspense book about Wall street and the sub prime mortgage crisis. There are many twists and turns in this book to keep you reading.

Four years after his wife dies, banker Michael Cantella's life falls apart showing that things are not how he thought. I thought the suspense dragged on a. It long.