Money to Burn

January 11, 2010
Bestseller Grippando’s overwrought financial thriller gives its hero, Michael Cantella, almost as rude an awakening as Kafka’s Gregor Samsa. Scandals involving subprime lending, short selling, and Ponzi schemes provide a timely backdrop. On the eve of his 35th birthday, Cantella goes from being a star performer at a premier Wall Street investment firm to a financially wiped-out victim of identity theft. His Job-like troubles are just beginning as the fallout not only rocks his second marriage and his firm but sets him up for a life on the run. Grippando (Intent to Kill
) keeps the reader guessing why Cantella specifically is targeted and how the vicious and relentless personal attacks relate to the unexplained disappearance (and presumed death) of his first wife on their wedding day seven years earlier. Despite a few plot holes, the dramatic tension remains high with a sadistic hired killer, high-stakes wheeler-dealers, and plenty of cinematic escapes.

When Michael Cantella, superstar investment banker, becomes the victim of identity theft, it sets in motion a series of events that ultimately exposes shady dealings in the world of high finance and brings it crumbling down. Narrator Jonathan Davis delivers a performance that is full of tense excitement that complements the story's fast-paced action. Characters come to life through subtle changes in Davis's voice. A weakness is that long pauses at the close of chapters bring one out of the moment. However, Grippando's action-packed story and Davis's consistent narration quickly re-engage the listener. J.R.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

March 15, 2010
Ranking among his best, Grippando's latest thriller (after "Intent To Kill") will not disappoint his loyal readers. Michael Cantella is a successful 35-year-old financier still living with the nightmare disappearance and death of his first wife, Ivy, on their honeymoon seven years earlier. When he logs on to his computer one day to find that his investment accounts have been cleaned out and subsequently finds his personal and professional lives under attack, the past he thought was buried rises once again. Not only is Michael facing the disappearance of his money and suspicion from the FBI that he may have stolen the funds himself, but he also has to consider the possibility that Ivy may still be alive. As with Grippando's best, the twists and turns are surprising and plentiful, while the protagonist is drawn well enough that the reader cares what happens to him. VERDICT Even those who don't regularly read Grippando will appreciate this latest effort, and there will be plenty of readers staying up late to finish this in one sitting. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/15/09.]Craig Shufelt, Fort McMurray P.L., Alberta

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2010
In Grippando's latest, a Wall Street investment banker is neither bull nor bear—he's a lamb led to slaughter.

Young Michael Cantella is a fast tracker at Saxton Silvers, a fast track Wall Street investment-banking firm. The good life is his—all the perks and all the toys that inevitably accrue to those extremely clever about money. But the good life is about to take a hit. Honeymooning in the Bahamas, Michael manages to lose his bride. Did beautiful, bright, endlessly sexy Ivy drink too much, fall off their sailboat, and plunge to her death? All anyone can say for sure is that she vanished. That 13-foot tiger shark snagged by a local fisherman? Well, maybe its stomach contents were tell-tale, maybe not. Flash forward four years. Michael, now 35, and a bit less the dazzling wunderkind, remains a Saxton Silvers mainstay with a new beautiful, bright, endlessly sexy wife, and if on occasion thoughts of Ivy darken contentment, he's learned to cope. Then it happens—the relentless, incomprehensible process by which Michael is converted into a modern-day Job. Begin with the night his computer conveys the jaw-dropping news that a $13 million nest egg has vanished as completely and mysteriously as Ivy did. Soon after, Michael finds himself universally deplored as the viper who did the dirty to his own firm, bringing it to the verge of bankruptcy. Moreover—another frame-up—the cops like him for the murder of Chuck Bell, the obnoxious host of a popular TV money show. Clearly, Michael has enemies, and though he doesn't know why they want him ruined, or who they are, they better not sell him short.

Grippando (Intent to Kill, 2009, etc.) serves up another full bore assault on plausibility, but his base won't be put off by that.

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