Sunday, March 31, 2013

Double Dealing: When Desperate Times Require Desperate Measures / Larry Shields


Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Financial Thriller

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“Larry started his Wall Street career in 1980, spending the first twenty years developing, marketing, and promoting investment products for corporate and wealthy investors. Writing was just one tool of communicating and promoting, combining it with video and personal presentations to help ‘tell a story.’
The market crash of 2008 created many stories to be told, yet all the media were caught up in the ‘blame game,’ attempting to explain how and why it happened. No one told the story of despair and desperation that everyone lived through, which many have still not recovered from.”

This is Shields’ first novel. He is currently at work on its sequel.

Description:

“Scott is a master of the universe at a Manhattan venture capital firm.
He has the requisite nerves of steel and the connections to be a serious player. What he lacks is the big score, the deal that will put his name on the map. And time is ticking down. In the wake of the Wall Street crash of ’08, his mentor, Jordan Holstein, has been forced out, and Scott’s been passed over for partner. It won’t be long before he’s out on the street himself. His home life isn’t much better.

Then redemption arrives in the form of a techno geek Stanford undergrad with a $500 million dollar idea.”

Appraisal:

This is the kind of book I naturally gravitate to, with legal and financial thrillers taking up a big chunk of my library space. If the story involves computers or technology, even better. This one touches on that area, with the storyline involving a Silicon Valley software startup looking for investment capital. The investment parts rang true, with details that obviously came from the author’s work experience. The software parts were fewer and more vague, which kept them on the right side of the believable/unbelievable line, although close at times. I liked the protagonist Scott, even more as he grew as a person and learned from his mistakes. All in all, a good read that should appeal to fans of the genre.

FYI:

Adult language and minor adult situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos and other proofing misses.

Rating: **** Four stars

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