THE CRASH OF '79

After gold, and silver, what comes most naturally next to money-man-moneymaker Erdman is oil, and in this his third, most assured and complicated thriller, he tells a highly successful story with lots of momentum and a surprise almost ending. The story's confided by an American banker, Hitchcock, who becomes a financial adviser to Saudi Arabia at the time when the Shah of Iran is determined to put the whole world in his well-lined hip pocket. It begins with the Swiss (and everyone knows that the Swiss are ""bland, dull, and apolitical. In a word, Swiss"") via an exchange of cheap oil for 100 million. This will enable the Shahsanshah's development of a nuclear energy striking force, assisted by a Swiss physicist Hartmann who has some ""special effects"" in mind. (On the side is narrator Hitchcock's romance with Hartmann's daughter.) Before long this ""Doctor No"" is really in the rigger's seat and the Shah has the whole ""world by the balls"" with all those countries in between and EXXON too. It's only a question of decimation versus bankruptcy when it comes down, and down it comes, to the crunch of '79. . . . The action of actions and there will be lots of Amerodollars underwriting it.