THE GREAT GAMBLER

An analyst, a writer, and a gambler take on a mysterious economic powerhouse in this speculative thriller.

Sometime in the near future, an unnamed financial analyst recalls an encounter with a mysterious investor named Lefevre, of Lefevre Inc., a Manhattan-based hedge company with seemingly endless funding. The author positions Lefevre as a late-stage capitalist with unlimited resources and determination. The analyst, jobless after making the wrong choices with a client’s funds, encounters Lefevre, who offers enough money to revive the analyst’s tarnished reputation—but with some odd stipulations. The analyst must sign an expansive NDA and consent to be studied by Lefevre for reasons unknown. The novel comprises three acts, one recounted by the analyst, the second by Yorsad Nayadu (possibly a stand-in for the author), and the third by the conspicuously lucky gambler, Nina Noble. Also included are interstitial segments of interviews with the three main characters and a nondescript interviewer of an undisclosed entity. In the first of these interviews, the analyst expresses suspicion of Lefevre’s intentions. Likewise, the interviewer indicates that there’s more to Lefevre than has been revealed. This hinting continues for most of the first act, which is also the longest. The most interesting aspect of this sometimes befuddling book is the slow reveal of details about each character’s identity and motivation. The analyst remains mostly anonymous, with important details withheld until late in the novel. The author telegraphs that the cast knows more than they’re letting on during one interview with Nayadu, who responds to a question about the difficulty of writing a story shrouded in NDAs. Readers who enjoy cerebral, experimental fiction will enjoy this strange tale, so long as they aren’t put off by the extensive jargon (“asset-gatherers and the arb-compounders, the vol-vendors and the gamma-amassers, the coupon-clippers and the fee-fingerers”) and mazy plotlines. While the central ideas are left a bit obfuscated, the descriptions and the originality of the tale are distinctly artful.

A complicated, involving tour of late-stage capitalism and its players.