Nothing Personal

December 9, 2013
In Offit’s uneven debut, middle-class Warren Hament attends Columbia Business School in 1984, then lands a plum job as a bond trader at the fictional Weldon Brothers in Manhattan. When bad things start happening to people he’s close to—a fellow M.B.A. student goes into a coma, another dies after a skiing accident, and a high-ranking colleague is murdered—Hament is much too savvy to dismiss these events as purely coincidental. The author’s real-life experience on the Street makes Hament’s rapid ascent credible, and Offit is good at building suspense on the trading floor of Weldon and in the boardrooms of clients, providing a first-hand glimpse at just how sleazy and self-interested Wall Street can be: “It was always, and only, about money. Just business. Nothing personal.” Wooden dialogue and purple sex scenes are troublesome, but the main problem is that the financial excesses of the 1980s feel like ancient history.

February 1, 2014
A morally conscious business school graduate enters the cutthroat environment of 1980s Wall Street. Former trader Offit tells the story of Warren Hament's journey out of business school and into the amoral abyss of top-tier investment banking. After finding his way into Columbia Business School, Hament's strong interpersonal skills and quick intelligence land him a premier job on the "Street." In his new job, he finds crass, unhappy and unscrupulous co-workers whose only priority is making as much money as they possibly can. Within this environment, he struggles with his own moral compass and finding a route to his sense of self. Nonetheless, he is able to navigate the ethically ambiguous maze of his new job to achieve an unprecedented level of success in sales. During his meteoric rise to the top, Hament transitions from a naive financial apprentice to a cunning manipulator of the politics of big business. Outside the office, he leaves a romantic relationship with his corporate-climbing classmate to find amorous bliss with a former model who now owns a rental-car company in Los Angeles. However, a series of unsolved deaths begins to blur the lines between his romantic and business lives. Along with the subsequent homicide investigations, the discovery of an immense fortune adds tension to an already taut storyline. Offit's familiarity with the characters, language and investment products allows him to deftly tell a coming-of-age story that will appeal to financial wizards and investment neophytes alike. An entertaining, well-developed work of Wall Street fiction.

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