Not to go OT too soon, but another genre that's shamefully neglected is the exciting and dramatic world of IT.
Oh, I know that there have been books, movies and TV shows about whiz kid hackers, but I'm talking about the mature IT professional who keeps the wheels of corporate IT turning, while having numerous adventures and lots of incredible sex with outrageously attractive women in romantic locations around the world and simultaneously battling evil and saving the world.
I've offered to provide details of the kind of things I'm talking about; I've even offered to star in the movie version, but sadly I've so far had no offers.
There was the John D. MacDonald thriller Pale Gray for Guilt that I remember liking very much.
John D. MacDonald wrote a financial thriller, Pale Gray for Guilt, I remember liking very much.
For sure, Monica. Remember John D. MacDonald's sidekick, Meyer, was some kind of a financial something. Economist?
From WSJ Online:
The accountant-turned-murderer in "A Tan and Sandy Silence" (1971), for example, tortures his victims for the information needed to complete a complex swindle, but loves inflicting pain so much that he decides to use his extorted gains to finance a new vocation as a recreational sadist.
But MacDonald wasn't just interested in monstrous killers. More than any other crime writer before him, he focused on the details of corrupt business practices. In "Pale Gray for Guilt" (1968), McGee uncovers the workings of a greedy developer who first ruins a friend of McGee's and then has him murdered. With the help of Meyer, the economist who lives on the houseboat next door, McGee devises a complex con that combines an apparent real-estate flip with an invitation to what looks like a foolproof insider trading scheme. The crooked financier falls for it, and MacDonald renders McGee's revenge in meticulous financial detail.
MacDonald's focus on the business scene was no accident. He held a Harvard MBA, and probably would have made a career in business but for his espionage work during World War II. Because his letters were censored, he wrote short stories home instead. His wife sold one and, spurred by this surprise success, MacDonald decided he would be a writer.
I stopped reading your review when you said the main character's name is Samuel Spendlove. That name alone pretty much told me all I need to know about the book.
I'll take exception to that, Andy! That was my mother's maiden name (no, not Samuel).
However, the thought that parents could impose such an agonizingly alliterative monicker to their offspring is pretty scary.
Michael Ridpath has done quite well out of the genre. Met him. Nice young man. But never read him. Don't really like thrillers of any kind.
Allow me to recommend Manuel Vazquez Montalban, The Angst-Ridden Executive (1977), which is set in the murky world of high finance - and indeed any of Montalban's stories about his marvellous creation, Pepe Carvalho, which - as well as being superb detective fiction - are also paeans to everything that is wonderful about Barcelona, namely food, women and football.
In the '80 Paul Erdman wrote a whole bunch of book based in/on Finance including the Crash of '79 and the Zero Coupon. They are almost charmingly retro in style but at least financially litterate.
There is a great, contemporary novel to be written that has the doings of financiers at its core and which does not pander to the notion that moneymaking is a zero-sum game.
Sorry, I don't believe this is true. "Deals" will, because of the financing, allow entrepreneurs to create wealth (positive sum). But the deal itself is pretty much zero-sum: the higher the interest rate the more the bank gets, the less the payer has.
Also, in bidding for a deal -- the more the investment bank gets in fees, the less that is available for the investment.
It's actually a hugely underdiscussed issue in economics, that each individual deal, each decision, IS a zero-sum distribution of "deal surplus". The wealth creation effect is based on this deal surplus.
Example, 2-week holiday at an Italian beach for a family of 6.
Offers: 1200 for 2 rooms 100 m away; 1000 for 2 rooms 350 m away, 1100 for 1 room 50 m away.
I'm willing to pay 1300 for 2 rooms 50 m away. All of these are acceptable, and I'll choose one (a, probably), and have some surplus -- but obviously, the more they get the more I have to pay. Zero sum in distributing the particular deal surplus.
Every individual deal includes a surplus to both sides -- this win-win aspect is the basis of Free Trade. But the distribution of the surplus isn't.
I think this is such an important point, I'm going to have to think about it some more.
Tom Grey, you are going to have to think about this some more because when you do, you will see that your argument is a nonsense. If I trade with you and we both get something that we want, that is a positive sum game. There is no "surplus" that exists "out there" in some pre-existing state outside the properties of the individuals concerned.
If you enjoy "financial thrillers" you might want to check out "Nineteenth Street NW" by Brett Wood (it's coming out Sept 2008, but review copies are available, or pre-order from Amazon). It's about a terrorist trying to sabotage the world currency markets (which trade more than a trillion dollars per day) and it's set in an IMF-like organization called the International Monetary and Financial Organization (which is how central banks etc are brought into the picture). It is more of a character-based thriller, with two strong female protagonists. Check it out. the book's website is www.imfo.org