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Summary
Author Notes
Stephen Frey is a best-selling author of novels set in the financial world. He received a BS and an MBA from the University of Virginia. Frey started out his career working in mergers and acquisitions at JP Morgan and served as a vice president of corporate finance at an international bank headquartered in Manhattan.
Frey's first books were all standalone stories. It was with the publication of The Chairman in which he introduced the character Christian Gillette that Stephen Frey began writing a series with the same character. He published four books about Gillette and his ties to the private equity firm of Everest Capital. His novels include The Takeover, The Inner Sanctum, Absolute Proof, The Day Trader, The Fourth Order, Forced Out, Hell's Gate, and Heaven's Fury.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The far-reaching clout of the military-industrial complex doesn't daunt the female IRS agent who is the protagonist of Frey's (The Vulture Fund) fast-paced third thriller. A time-delayed e-mail sent by her IRS boss after his murder urges Jesse Hayes to continue his investigation of campaign funding fraud by Senate candidate Elbridge Coleman. Coleman, Jesse learns, was hand-picked by the old-boy network to unseat Maryland's black incumbent, Malcolm Walker, a highly vocal advocate of reducing defense spending. Jesse calls on old boyfriend Todd Colton, a PI with a gambling habit, for help, but Todd's debt to a Mafia loan shark cuts his value. She gains a seeming ally in handsome David Mitchell, the protégé of Elizabeth Gilman, founder of Baltimore's hottest investment house, though he has ties to the power group behind Coleman. A mole on a megabucks defense project leaks information about the powerful group behind Coleman, and Todd and David seems to help Jesse stay one step ahead of the killer as she looks for the hard evidence that would justify calling in bigger guns. Ultimately, however, she is betrayed by Todd just as she discovers that David's firm is linked to the Coleman campaign and the defense project they were tracking down. Not knowing whom to trust, Jesse must find a way to undo a nearly perfect setup by the men in power. Although the action sometimes outpaces credibility, bank executive Frey knows finance. His convincing portrayal of the lure of easy money floats this novel over occasional rough patches. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A plucky young woman from the IRS takes on a sinister military/industrial cabal, in yet another implausible offering from Frey, who this time comes close to recycling his villains in last year's The Vulture Fund. Jesse Hayes, a field agent in the Internal Revenue Service's Baltimore office, receives a potentially dangerous legacy when her immediate superior dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances. The bequest is a file he had been compiling on Elbridge Coleman, a wealthy entrepreneur who's challenging Malcolm Walker for his Senate seat. While Jesse (who's close to earning an MBA) carries on with her former mentor's investigation, she keeps a weather eye on private-sector opportunities and catches the attention of Elizabeth Gilman, managing director of Sagamore Investment. In the course of subsequent job interviews with Gilman's associates, Jesse begins to suspect that there may be a connection between the secretive money- management firm and the Coleman papers. She's right on. Sagamore is at the heart of a wide-ranging intrigue involving Senator Carter Webb (power-mad chairman of the Appropriations Committee), Theodore Cowen (Chief of Naval Operations), Jack Finnerty (CEO of General Engineering & Aerospace), Gilman, and a host of lesser lights. This in-group is close to realizing a megabuck payoff on its scheme to secure a firm contract to build the A-100, a carrier-based fighter developed secretly with funds from the Pentagon's so-called black budget; news of the hitherto unpublicized program also promises to do wonders for the market value of General Engineering (which is effectively controlled by Sagamore). Before the plotters can cash in, however, they must drive Walker, an outspoken foe of defense spending, from office and keep Hayes from learning too much. Despite their deadliest efforts, Jesse proves too resilient, savvy, and tough for the co-conspirators to handle. Lively, but there's precious little but trite plights and clichd characters behind this creaking door. (First printing of 125,000)
Booklist Review
Jesse Hayes, an IRS agent earning her MBA at night, has dreams of one day becoming a wealthy Wall Street trader. Her mentor and adviser is her boss, whose sudden death puts Jesse in the middle of an investigation into a political and economic conspiracy. The central figure in the plot seems to be the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, who appears to be accepting campaign contributions from mysterious sources. But as Jesse digs deeper, she learns that the candidate is only a pawn in a dangerous and deadly game to unseat the Democratic incumbent, a beloved black man out to slash the defense budget. There are many high-powered people whose livelihood depends on the fat defense budget, and they are the very brains of the conspiracy. One thing Jesse does not know, however, is how David Mitchell fits into the picture. David is a junior member of a local but highly successful brokerage firm--one that is courting Jesse to join them upon graduation--and he has shown more than a casual interest in her. Not knowing whom she can trust, Jesse relies on her own instincts to get to the bottom of the mess. In this, his third novel, Frey has secured his place as a master of financial thrillers. --Mary Frances Wilkens
Library Journal Review
After her boss dies suddenly, IRS agent Jesse Hayes receives a mysterious, time-delayed E-mail message from him warning her of a powerful conspiracy involving senatorial candidate Elbridge Coleman. A wealthy businessman with ties to the military, Coleman is at the heart of some nasty business. Now Hayes is the only person with the information to derail him, but a dangerous killer is on her trail. Meanwhile, David Mitchell, who works for a Baltimore-based investment firm, hopes to insure that a company he has backed wins a huge government defense contract. He and Jesse meet, are attracted, and then seemingly wind up on opposite sides as the deadly conspiracy plays itself out. Readers looking for a fast-paced financial thriller will enjoy the slick, albeit facile, plot and writing from the best-selling Frey (The Vulture Fund, Dutton, 1996). While entertaining, this book breaks no new ground in the thriller game. Suitable for pop fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/97.]Dean James, formerly with Houston Acad. of Medicine/Texas Medical Ctr. Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.