Amazon
Digital Services, 326 pps, Kindle only $3.46 or paperback $24.84 here.
This book serves up an economical read.
By putting two books into one Hames feeds his readers a fictional account of
one man’s rise and fall and a factual narrative about how banks and
international finance work.
The first fifty pages brim with the
factual. Hames treats his readers to a complete explication of how global
financial markets work. Soon the reader is also treated to the fictional world
of Alex Konninger, a lively psychopath who strings us along by the brilliance
of his lies.
This fictional character’s impressively
psychopathic, or psycho-pathetic, tendencies,
hook the reader into wondering how exactly his
life will unfold. Protagonist Alex’s ability to forego any moral
considerations, his capacity to act upon nothing but greed and self-interest
since, as he points out (in the manner of narcissistic personalities
everywhere) “THEY” are all doing the same thing, boggles the reader’s mind.
Really? People in high finance are really
that driven by avarice? Maybe. Or maybe that answer satisfies our desire
(excuse me, I mean those of us who do not reap millions of dollars per year in
wages and bonus) to see those very wealthy people as spiritually bankrupt. That
satisfaction gets massaged repeatedly as Alex falls from one pitiful, drunken
disaster to another without taking the consequences.
It is the amount of alcohol, the number
of mornings sacrificed to body paralyzing hangovers that keeps the picture in
our mind straight. Here is a character who deeply deserves what we begin to see
will befall him. Again, a very satisfying sense of completeness, of the
universe unfolding as it should.
That is the fiction. In the world in
which a global recession hit apparently out of the blue, no one at the top took
the fall. We all know that. We all know that and we all keep investing in the
casino known as the stock market, because we too, wish to be the winners who
rake in many, many dollars. In this way we forgive those who created the
monstrous recession that saw millions lose their homes, their jobs, their way
of life; we forgive those who orchestrated this suffering, because we know
given a chance, we’d love to have our dirty hands on those wheels of power.
The book describes those wheels and the
hands that turn them. Hames is a skillful writer, carefully executing the
actions, and justifications of a morally deficit individual working within what
may be the most morally corrupt area of our times. At least, those of us who don’t reap millions of dollars by
playing in those areas like to believe it so.
Charlene
Jones’ poetry has most recently appeared
on Commuterlit. This, poem, “Visitors to the ROM” was a runner up
in the Ontario Poetry Society’s annual Arborealis poetry
contest. Charlene also writes for her radio program Off the Top with
Whistle Radio, 102.7 fm, aired every second Tuesday from 3:00 to 3:30 p.m.
(Note: Whistle Radio and CommuterLit have recently teamed up to run a monthly
contest. Details here.) You can see Charlene perform her poetry and prose
at Portobello Restaurant and Bar the
first Saturday every month in Toronto. Finally, Chalene’s first novel, The Stain was
released in September.
See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing
courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge,
Collingwood, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland,
Mississauga, Newmarket, Niagara on the Lake, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa,
Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto,
Windsor, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA,
Ontario and beyond.
Very enjoyable. I am not in the city business at all, but this had me hooked. great plot, great characters, couldn't second guess the plot at all. Fast moving but plenty of detail with great explanations.
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