Review “Grippando’s latest thriller couldn’t be more timely. . . . All the elements you expect from a Grippando novel are here, including interesting characters, a plot filled with nonstop action and suspense, and continual surprises. A splendid read.” (Romantic Times)“Reader Warning Alert: if you plan to read James Grippando’s white-hot thriller Money to Burn, push all your scheduled activities back for a few days. It’s impossible to put down. . . . His best yet. . . . Money to Burn is a real-time, heart-racing gamble.” (Madison County Herald)“[A] gripping thriller.” (National Examiner)“Scandals involving subprime lending, short selling, and Ponzi schemes provide a timely backdrop. . . . Grippando keeps the reader guessing. . . . The dramatic tension remains high with a sadistic hired killer, high-stakes wheeler-dealers, and plenty of cinematic escapes.” (Publishers Weekly)“Ranking among his best, Grippando’s latest thriller will not disappoint his loyal readers. . . . The twists and turns are surprising and plentiful . . . and there will be plenty of readers staying up late to finish this in one sitting.” (Library Journal)“Grippando is a skilled writer, and he works enough variations on the familiar theme to keep us guessing. . . . Recommend this one to fans of Joseph Finder’s PARANOIA, COMPANY MAN, or POWER PLAY.” (Booklist)“A sleek, sophisticated thrill machine. . . . I thoroughly enjoyed this blood-soaked tale of murder and intrigue set among Wall Street’s most powerful and unscrupulous players. Highly recommended.” (Christopher Reich, author of RULES OF VENGEANCE and NUMBERED ACCOUNT)“MONEY TO BURN will get you so excited and worked up, you just may go out and steal a few million.” (Brad Meltzer, author of THE BOOK OF FATE and THE TENTH JUSTICE)“MONEY TO BURN is one of those all-too-rare novels you won’t be able to stop reading once you start. It’s a perfectly mixed cocktail of dry wit, sophisticated voice, believable characters, non-stop suspense, and plenty of vicarious pleasure.” (Joseph Finder, author of Vanished and Paranoia)“James Grippando skillfully uses the financial meltdown, along with Ponzi schemes and identity theft, in an exciting and timely thriller. . . . This is a thriller through and through.” (South Florida Sun Sentinel) Read more From the Back Cover Michael Cantella is a rising star at Saxton Silvers, Wall Street's premier investment bank, when his new wife, Ivy Layton, vanishes on their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Four years later—with a beautiful new wife and his career back on track—Michael checks his investment accounts online . . . and discovers he's been wiped out. All the money is gone. And there's an e-mail message: Just as planned. xo xo.Michael's life as he knows it has been liquidated. Saxton Silvers is on the brink of bankruptcy and he's suspected of orchestrating its ruin. Framed, embroiled in corporate espionage, facing divorce—and much worse—he's desperate to clear his name as FBI agents and a psychotic assassin close in for the kill. All signs seem to suggest the unthinkable: Ivy is back from the dead . . . and a key player in Michael's deadly downfall. Or his only hope. Read more See all Editorial Reviews
R**N
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "THE THING ABOUT REVENGE IS... YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN-IF EVER-THEY ARE GOING TO CALL IT EVEN"
It's 2003 and young Wall Street movers and shakers like thirty-one-year-old Michael Cantella are sitting on top of their own opulent world. He's making the rich richer... while earning SEVEN-FIGURE-PERFORMANCE-BONUSES... and so many award trips that he can pick which ones he wants to attend like a sultan chooses a wife for the night. Cantella is a top young performer for Saxton Silvers and his praises have been sung in national magazines and on TV. One of the select award trips he decides to attend in the company of Ivy Layton, his relatively new lover, is a cruise to the Bahamas. As the reader is showered with unrelenting examples of every ostentatious bauble known to mankind ranging from jewels... to homes... to clothing... to salaries... to bonuses... to wine... to champagne and to trips... Ad Nauseam... Michael and Ivy get bored with the gossipy company they're forced to be part of on this cruise ship so they get off onto a privately chartered sail boat and head off into (another) paradise. After days of drinking "expensive" drinks... making indescribable love... over and over... and after smoking too much "ganja"... they get married in a ceremony that includes a "two-hundred-pound cocktail waitress known locally as VALERIE BANG-BANG as their maid of honor."After a night on their sailboat celebrating with the aforementioned accoutrements Michael wakes up with a powerful hangover and a missing wife. To make a long story short we fast forward four years and Michael is back in New York ultra successful... remarried... and we're told Ivy's DNA had been found inside a shark... and though Michael had been cleared of Ivy's murder... suspicion is still all about. On the night of Michael's thirty-fifth birthday and after a lavish bash where the average reader is reminded of all the glitz and gold we can only dream about... Michael logs on to check his multi-multi-million-dollar portfolio... and lo and behold it's all gone. And since a large part of his portfolio included shares in Saxton Silvers a domino effect is created that leads to the disintegration of Saxton Silvers as a company... which includes the stock dropping almost a hundred dollars a share in a day. From there we have tapped phones... tapped cars... spyware everywhere there could possibly be spyware... don't trust the FBI... trust the FBI... Ivy is alive... Ivy is dead... Michael is rich... Michael is poor... Michael is getting divorced... Michael's arrested... Michael's let go... people are being incinerated... people are being murdered... we have hedge funds... cheap loans... no credit... people aren't who they say they are... and in the midst of all this... just in case the reader doesn't feel average enough... we visit a Tudor-style mansion in New York that is a "TEN-ACRE ESTATE THAT ACTUALLY SPANNED THREE TOWNS AND HAD FIVE ADDRESSES, PUTTING HIS ANNUAL PROPERTY TAX BILL SOMEWHERE NORTH OF $300,000.00-ALL WORTH IT, NO DOUBT, IF YOU AND YOUR WIFE NEEDED NINE BEDROOMS, TWELVE BATHROOMS, TWO SWIMMING POOLS, A CLAY TENNIS COURT, A PUTTING GREEN MODELED AFTER THE FAMOUS TWELFTH HOLE AT AUGUSTA, A COLLECTION OF BEEHIVES, AND THREE LARGE PADDOCKS. THROW IN A RIVER RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODED BACKYARD AND A TROUT-STOCKED PRIVATE, LAKE."Meanwhile back to the intrigue. While there is a constant flowing energy in the storytelling... an above average acumen (Which I don't possess.) in the real estate/Wall Street field would probably increase a potential readers enjoyment.
S**E
Finally, a Wall Street thriller!
With the exception of Christopher Reich's debut novel, Numbered Account and a few of his other books, and the lower-profile but equally good books by Michael Ridpath (Trading Reality,The Predator or Final Venture), there's been a dearth of good Wall Street thrillers out there. Which is a shame, because so much of what happens on the Street can only be done justice to in the form of fiction -- and suspense novels or thrillers, at that. Because, frankly, no one would believe even half of it otherwise...I had high hopes for Grippando's shift from legal thrillers into this world, and he certainly delivers a fast-paced and lively narrative. (The timing of the book's release is also downright uncanny!) The plot revolves around the hapless Michael Cantella, who finds his personal life starts to crumble around him just as short-sellers begin attacking the investment bank for which he works, Saxton Silvers. Everything is going wrong: his wife, two days after throwing him a big birthday party, now wants a divorce; someone has stolen his identity and looted his accounts, and now he's being seen as responsible for the collapse of his own Wall Street firm. Could this be related to his brief marriage to Ivy, who died on their honeymoon in the West Indies?? Michael has never given up hope that she might still be alive, and there are growing hints that is indeed the case...There are echoes of Harlan Coben's Tell No One: A Novel here, and a lot of the background has been ripped from the headlines, to quote a long-running television series. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but added to some downright improbable plot twists (and a plot that is complex enough, involving credit default swaps and naked short sales, to cause some readers to switch off), I ended up lowering my rating to 3.5 stars. I've rounded up to 4 stars because for most readers, this will be both a good thriller and a good way of getting a bit of a handle on what happened on Wall Street. Those familiar with Wall Street or who have followed the headlines over the last two years will get a chuckle at the antics of a Jim Cramer-like television pundit who appears on "FNN" (aka CNBC), and the guest appearance by hedge fund mogul Steve Cohen's $8 million stuffed shark, but may find themselves skipping pages here or there as the context is explained. For some of them -- or for those who lost homes, jobs, savings, etc. during the debacle -- this may be either too familiar a story or a too painful one to read as fiction to be more than a three-star read. So I'd recommend it to thriller afficionados (those who have enjoyed Grippando's previous mysteries, or the earlier books by Christopher Reich would find much to like here) who haven't been battered by the Wall Street crisis, Bernie Madoff, etc., and who thus feel able to cope with a fictional treatment of the events we've all lived through.But if you're looking for other financial thrillers, I'd suggest hunting down some of Michael Ridpath's books. Published in the late 1990s, for the most part, they hold up well, and I keep hoping he'll come back with some more. Those are definitely sold 4 to 4.5 star reads for me; most are out of print, but well worth seeking out. Or, if you want a real insider's take on a Wall Street mystery, look for The Golden Dog, by Scott Sipprelle, a former Morgan Stanley banker and later a hedge fund manager who played a role in the ouster of Phil Purcell, Morgan's former CEO. It's self-published, and not as polished in terms of style or structure, but Sipprelle knows all the ins and outs of Wall Street.
D**.
Top Shelf.
Murder, mystery, missing millions, corporate greed, trickery, lies and deciept, lifes good at the top, and the landing at the bottom is hard and nothing makes sense. The who,why, when and where; make this book a great read by a great author.
J**L
Your Worst Nightmare
The author has created a believeable living Hell for its chief character and he never really lets up from the start to the end. Tightly written, well paced, this is a book which weaves its way to an ending which is appropriate and unexpected and when you can do that and keep the reader engaged, you have written a winner. If you ask why this is not a five star review I will only say that is a rareified rating for me and a four star is a book you need to read!!
L**T
Loved It!!
Some of the reviews had me worried but I bought it anyway and absolutely LOVED IT! I loved the way he writes, the characters and I learned a tremendous amount about what led to the downfall of Wall Street. This was a great book that I have recommended to many people. If you like Harlan Coben and Lee Child, you should also like this!
A**R
confused by repeated paragraphs
I liked this book a lot, but was bothered by one thing. In this book, he describes going into a Bahamas house at night. I thought I had read the exact same passage in "When Darkness Falls," and sure enough, when I checked, there it was, word for word. It was a fairly long passage. I then found a second passage about motel room construction repeated in both books as well. I've never seen this before. I found it disconcerting to read the same thing in two of his books, which I coincidentally had read back to back.
M**G
Grippando never lets you down
I am reading and collecting every book that James Grippando has written. I buy them as gifts for friends and familyresulting in the gift receivers launching their own search for his other books.
Trustpilot
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