Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | Conway | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
James Conway has written the corporate thriller for our age, and age when the power of new media and the hunder of Wall Street converge to form a deadly entity capable of bringing the global economy to its knees.
Drew Havens made a killing for the Rising Fund, which, thanks to his prognostications, was the only hedge operation to anticipate and capitalize on the mortgage crisis of 2008. For Havens, it's always been about the numbers. He sees things others can't, from the collapse of the American real estate market to the multibillion-dollar rise of his ruthless and charismatic boss.
Havens is now rich beyond his dreams, but his work at the Rising Fund has cost him his marriage. And now it may cost him his life. It starts with the brutal murder of his young protégé and, over the course of six explosive days, six other brokers around the world, each killed after executing a trade linked to the Rising Fund.
As the violence escalates from South Africa to São Paulo, Hong Kong to Berlin, Havens frantically tries to construct a model that will reveal the catastrophic event that only he can see coming--and confirm that his boss and the Rising Fund are at the center of it. The Last Trade is a relentlessly entertaining, adrenaline-fueled thriller about the forces that shape our culture-and a lone man desperate to achieve redemption-- while averting a global economic catastrophe.
Author Notes
JAMES CONWAY is a pseudonym for a hedge fund insider and a global strategy director at a major advertising firm. The Last Trade is Conway's first thriller. He lives in Mount Kisco, New York.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hedge fund manager Rick Salvado smacks of villainy from page one of the pseudonymous Conway's impressive first thriller. Thanks to the work of his 28-year-old "stat-arb quant," good guy Drew Havens, Salvado profited immensely when the housing bubble burst in 2008, as did Havens. But when the action opens in October 2011, Havens, who's uncertain about his career choice, worries about the possibly dangerous direction the fund is taking, based on cryptic messages about strange trading activity from his protege, Danny Weiss. When the bodies begin to fall, starting with a trader in Hong Kong, Cara Sobieski, an agent of the Terrorism and Financial Intelligence task force, gets on the case. Sobieski, the financial world equivalent of Lisbeth Salander, makes a more compelling hero than the brilliant but often clueless Havens. While Conway, billed as "a hedge fund insider," at times bogs down in exposition, he offers a compulsively readable look into the arcane world of high finance. Agent: David Gernert, the Gernert Company. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Fascinating, if uneven, debut thriller that links Wall Street treachery to international terrorism. Credit debut author Conway, pseudonym for a hedge fund insider and an ad firm global strategy planner, for a premise that layers the threat of international terrorism onto the world's considerable anxieties over a global economic collapse. It's a double whammy that, as Conway lays it out, seems plausible. The notion is that far darker villains than Bernie Madoff may lurk about Wall Street, namely international terrorists who seek to bring the country down through financial disaster. A glimmer of what's afoot first appears to Drew Havens, "a CUNY-educated nobody" crunching numbers for Citibank in Long Island City. Havens is spotted by Wall Street shark Rick Salvado, who admires Havens' crack ability to spot stocks ripe for short selling (some readers may need a tutorial to follow the author's complicated expositions on this topic). Following Havens' canny insights, Salvado's firm, Rising Fund, soars. Havens soon finds the work distasteful and wants out. About to bail, he's alerted by Danny Weiss, a co-worker, that Rising Fund is involved is some peculiar, suspicious trades. Then Weiss is rubbed out, leaving behind several coded messages that Havens endeavors to decipher. In Hong Kong, meanwhile, another trader is taken out just as he, too, made a series of trades in computer stocks. That murder brings onto the scene Cara Sobieski, who, as part of the newly formed Terrorism and Financial Intelligence task force, suspects that some sort of Wall Street jihad approaches--a possibility Havens also suspects as he begins to understand Weiss' cryptic jottings and as other murders of traders follow. Conway effectively links Havens' and Sobieski's personal lives to their careers, giving the characterizations texture. Divorced and racked by family tragedy, Havens seeks solace in statistics. After a series of failed relationships, Sobieski turns to promiscuous sex. Alas, their troubles play out in scenes that, hampered by clichs and stilted dialogue, often go thud. Sure to unsettle readers who check their investments 10 times a day. ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Drew Havens certainly earned his place among the much-maligned one percent but at a significant cost. The stress of surviving the housing bubble even coming out significantly better on the other side cost him his marriage. Still, with Rising Fund, an immensely successful hedge-fund company, he hopes to impart his knowledge to his young, eager colleague Danny Weiss. After a few apparently coincidental accidents take place in the workplace, Danny suspects an international financial consipiracy afoot. Drew rolls his eyes at this theory, until Danny is found dead. With the guilt of losing both his family and Danny weighing heavily, Drew decides to turn sleuth. Along the way he uncovers secrets he'd rather not have known about Rising Fund and its elite executives. Conway, himself a hedge-fund manager, writes under a pseudonym for protection, and his experience lends authenticity to the story. While his storytellling skills aren't up to the level of, say, Stephen Frey, he does generate considerable suspense to go with the financial detail.--Wilkens, Mary Frances Copyright 2010 Booklist