THE MONEY STONES

Authentic financial shady-shenanigans--which unfortunately build to the most conventional of melodramatic bloodbaths. Accountant-banker Mike Townsend is the very convincing narrator here, and he's about to be taken upstairs into the highest echelons of his bank when he receives an offer from outside that is irresistible. He is approached by brilliant money man Rupert Hallsworth to go in as full partner in a brand new company Rupert wants to fund, Mike to share equally in Rupert's money. After a year getting the new investment company on its feet, Mike is taken in by a mysterious Greek, Aristotle Pepalsis, who declares he has bought an island with the richest diamond prospects in history. He needs $20 million up front to begin operations. Mike (and Rupert) must put together a consortium of investors to finance the opportunity. Once Mike has the money together, a trip to the island proves the diamond dream to be a turkey; but now the island reveals a nickel lode worth $50 million to U.S. Steel, if Mike can buy the island from the Greek and then sell it to the Americans. However, as he's putting this heady but uncomfortable triumph together, his world falls apart: Rupert and the Greek are revealed to be in collusion, and Mike's girlfriend of three years' standing turns out to be Rupert's supposedly suicided wife; he's been a patsy all along. . . . Sinister unravelings with neat skulduggery, but the lapses into clichÉ make it pretty much for finance-buffs only.