Still, a financial thriller that tries to do the right thing–and make a killing in the process. Trester achieves at least...
A Wall Street insider searches for the soul lurking within the cutthroat world of high finance in this efficient, entertaining novel.
Though his previous publications appeared primarily in physics and economics journals, Trester knows intimately the milieu in which his novel is set. Drawing on first-hand experience, he captures the frenetic scene of the trading floor in vivid detail, as well as the colorful personalities and outrageous egos his protagonist encounters. Thirty-three-year-old Jack Kline is a former physicist who trades the penury of academia for the more lucrative pursuit of high-stakes global finance at a small investment firm, hoping to apply his chaos theory-based mathematical models to the finance game. He remains ambivalent about his decision, however, haunted by the shelves of physics books that line the walls of his Upper East Side one-bedroom apartment. As he continues to prove his worth at the firm, a miscommunication about a trade throws him into the center of an intoxicating maelstrom that causes the total collapse of a small country's currency–but also proves a healthy windfall for the company. Though he's bewildered by the sudden attention and suffers pangs of conscience for having inadvertently cast millions of people into poverty, it's not terribly easy to sympathize with him when he comforts himself by purchasing a multimillion-dollar co-op on Central Park West. The rather superficial inner conflict starts to wear as it begins to encompass the depth of his character and the dramatic impulse behind the narrative. Other characters, like the wealthy, cultured mystery woman he becomes romantically involved with, also suffer the angst of compromise, having sullied their intellects and talents by submitting them to the base–but in their cases wildly lucrative–service of the marketplace. Rather than embodying a critique or satire of such pretentious arrogance, these figures round out the novel's entertaining peek into this elite realm of movers and shakers, making Jack look better in comparison. Ultimately, he's let off the hook and ushered toward the sadly predictable have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too ending.
Still, a financial thriller that tries to do the right thing–and make a killing in the process. Trester achieves at least partial success on both accounts.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-4116-1872-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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