โ Scribed by Frey, Stephen
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Frey's latest pecuniary adventure follows his formula of extremely complicated plots spun around illegal, high-level financial shenanigans. He's used it with variations before (The Takeover; The Legacy; The Insider; etc.), and despite clunky writing, implausible situations, lucky coincidences and untied threads, it proves perfectly serviceable once again. Investment banker Conner Ashby is checking his e-mail while beautiful girlfriend Liz Shaw lounges nude on his bed when he accidentally intercepts an interoffice memo that refers to improprieties in an entity named Project Delphi. The wayward communication states that this company is engaged in rampant corporate fraud: "Big expense accounts, undocumented loans, and tons of in-the-money option grants. Plus, the senior guys are hiring executive assistants who look like centerfolds but can't spell their own names." Shortly after Conner receives the message, an intruder breaks into his apartment and starts shooting. Conner is out the window and on the run; Liz is dead. The plot encompasses a mysterious presidential chief of staff who is out to either save his boss or do him in, a secretary of the treasury who has cashed in big time on ill-gotten corporate shares, and quite a few women who either want to be Conner's girlfriend or want him dead. It's all very tangled, but Frey has the undeniable ability to explain complex financial transactions while at the same time providing plenty of action and nuggets of insider money lore. Those readers who like their financial fiction fast and furious will be perfectly happy as long as they don't pay too much attention to the details.
Copyright ยฉ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Conner Ashby took a job as an investment banker with Phenix Capital because its founder and president, the now elderly Gavin Smith, is a wonderful mentor and an up-by-his-own-bootstraps man, like Conner himself. So it's no surprise that Conner turns to Gavin for help after a series of events that seems to defy explanation. During a tryst with Liz, a wealthy heiress engaged to someone else, Conner hears a beep from his computer, signifying the arrival of e-mail. The message alludes to an apparent conspiracy to rip off investors with the bank. Later, returning home after running an errand, he finds his apartment ransacked, Liz dead, the intruder still on the premises. Conner evades the thug, summons the police, and returns to his apartment to find everything in pristine condition--including the spot where Liz's dead body once lay. Finding the connection between that e-mail message and the disappearance of Liz becomes Conner's obsession, despite Gavin's advice to forget the incident and move on. Staying true to the formula that has made his financial thrillers successful, Frey throws his financial-wizard hero into a situation in which he can trust no one and forces him to risk his life while uncovering a bizarre web of corruption and deceit. There are no real surprises here, but Frey does what he does skillfully, and he's found a large and receptive audience. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright ยฉ American Library Association. All rights reserved
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