A captivating economic tale, both riveting and historically enlightening.
An attorney recollects his participation in a civil trial that resulted from a catastrophic meltdown of the global silver market in this debut book.
In 1979, Nelson Bunker Hunt, an “infamous Texas oil tycoon,” concocted a plan as audacious as it was illegal. He organized a massive purchase of the world’s silver supply in order to manipulate the price for his own financial aggrandizement. In concert with a crowd of Arab investors that came to be known as the “Conti group,” which included the brother-in-law of the Saudi crown prince, Hunt and his cohorts bought more than 75 percent of the world’s silver supply, forcing prices to skyrocket astronomically. But when the bubble he created burst, the ensuing damage was vast, compelling Paul Volcker, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, to orchestrate a colossal bailout to forestall an economic collapse. Cymrot was the lead attorney that represented Minpeco SA, the “exclusive agent for Peru’s mineral sales abroad,” in a civil suit against Hunt. As a result of Hunt’s illicit dealings, the company lost $80 million in 10 days. The author lucidly recounts a complex but gripping tale largely through the examination and cross-examination of Hunt, who claimed he was an “ordinary kind of guy.” He was presented by his lawyer as the “victim” of global events beyond his control. Cymrot, a hard-nosed attorney who formerly worked for the Justice Department and “preferred facts to folksy stories,” depicted Hunt’s gambit as an “assault on world silver supplies.” The author’s remembrance is astonishingly detailed, a vivid chronicle of a trial that turned out to be of historical and economic significance. The financial particulars can be hyper-technical for those unfamiliar with the labyrinthine machinations of the metals markets, but Cymrot gracefully manages to render clear the naturally convoluted. This is more than a trial transcript—the author ably transforms the facts into a real story, a novelistic depiction of extraordinary fiscal subterfuge. Cymrot has produced something rare—a genuinely thrilling financial drama.
A captivating economic tale, both riveting and historically enlightening.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-946074-19-5
Page Count: 470
Publisher: Twelve Tables Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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