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A YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE TO LATE CAPITALISM

A smart, intricate, fast-paced—but flawed—debut by a skilled writer.

In Mountford's debut, set in mid-last-decade Bolivia, a young man posing as a freelance journalist tries to unearth insider information for a hedge fund while negotiating political and financial intricacies (nimbly) and moral shoals (less so).

Ivy-educated 20-something Gabriel de Boya has opted out of penny-ante financial journalism for a high-stakes, high-stress, preposterously well-paid gig as a rapacious hedge fund's man in Bolivia. He knows he's being tested. If he doesn't demonstrate his value quickly and dramatically, he'll be fired. So when a left-wing indigenous candidate, Evo Morales, is elected president, Gabriel sees and seizes an opportunity; despite growing admiration for Bolivia and real affection for his new girlfriend, Morales' press liaison, Lenka, he'll exploit the romance to learn how seriously to take the president-elect's rhetoric about forcibly nationalizing industry, specifically gas companies. Depending on how his bold and tricky plan works, this stratagem may make Gabriel millions or land him in jail. Both of the book's settings—desperately poor but proud La Paz, the world's highest-altitude capital, and the world of go-go high finance, a realm about which Mountford clearly knows his stuff—are well rendered. The author is especially good at conveying the visceral and intellectual thrills of stock speculation/manipulation. But the human backdrop gets short shrift; minor characters (which would be everyone except Gabriel) often seem contrived, stereotypical and two-dimensional. That lapse has repercussions for the rest of the novel, making it seem more like an apologia for Gabriel's greed and narcissism than a gimlet-eyed exploration of a young man's questionable choices. Gabriel brilliantly games the financial system, but he's less successful at gaming the moral calculus. 

A smart, intricate, fast-paced—but flawed—debut by a skilled writer.

Pub Date: April 12, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-547-47335-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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