Rating: 
Summary: A Real Page Turner - Fast Paced If Unbelievable Action
Review: Angela Day, the central character of this story, has managed to overcome a life of poverty and tragedy to to create a rewarding career as a respected lending officer with Sumter Bank in Richmond, VA. However she is still haunted by the death of Sally Chambers, her childhood friend and college roommate, during their senior year at the university. (It is a central element of the story that Angela is white and Sally was black.) Over a decade later, Angela still feels reponsible for the circumstances of Sally's death and the racism that was responsible for the tragic incident; this experience has imbued her with a deep seated hatred of the residual traces of racism that still may be shared by some of the top managers of her bank. Thus, she has chosen to help Liv Jefferson, a local reporter, unearth material for an expose concerning the lending practices of Sumter bank.The other major regret in Angela's life is her divorce from Sam Reese, the son Chuck Reese, one of Richmond's wealthiest men and a sworn enemy of Bob Dudley, the chairman of Sumter Bank. Chuck believed Sam married beneath himself and convinced Sam to divorce Angela and marry into society. He also arranged for Sam to win the custody case for their six year old son Hunter, so that Angela has minimal visitation rights and is fearful that her relationship with Hunter will deteriorate as he grows up with the advantages that the Reese family can offer him. Suddenly, an opportunity is offered for Angela to advance her career and regain custody of Hunter at the same time. She is summoned to a secretive meeting in Wyoming with the reclusive multi-billionaire Jake Lawrence to be his go-between and do due diligence for an acquisition that he wants to consummate. Jake Lawrence has also been acquiring an ownership interest in Sumter Bank, and Bob Dudley and his management team become paranoid that Angela (who has been sworn to secrecy by Jake) is really helping Jake prepare for a takeover of Sumter. Soon it becomes evident not only that Jake Lawrence has to fear for his life given the powerful enemies that he has created, but that Angela has taken on an assignment that has put her in serious danger as well. Thus Jake's ranch foreman and trusted lieutenant John Tucker is commissioned as Angela's aide and bodyguard. The above description only gives the most elementary outline of the complexity of this story. The author's familiarity with the financial world allows him to provide enough detail to allow the reader to develop the necessary understanding of corporate takeovers and financial maneuvering to make the individual elements of the plot believable. And the only error that I noted in this regard was referring to the key decision elements of leading edge predictive software as logarithms rather than algorithms. The key to my enjoyment of this story was the complexity of the plot, the many separate but interrelated (and in the end essential) story lines, and the incredible misdirection. In many ways reading this is like trying to anticipate the next development in a detective story. The clues are there, but most evident only in retrospect. (Although I was successful in anticipating the story in a few instances.) However, despite the fact that the roles of many of the characters are not what they seem, after reading the conclusion I felt that I had been mislead unfairly in just one instance. In conclusion, I found this book to be a real page turner. While the elements involving financial markets were the centerpiece of the story, this was more action filled and concerned with personal relationships and questions of ethics and morality than Frey's other books. The character development is adequate for his purposes but certainly not the reason to read the story. I recommend this book strongly, my only reason for not rating it five stars is that while the story was cohesive and internally consistent, the combination of all the elements makes it necessary for the reader to suspend belief as the layers of complexity are revealed.
Rating: 
Summary: Silly, infantile, inane, and poorly written
Review: Frey's America is rife with racists of all stripes controlling the industrial and financial machinery that runs this country. The book starts out with some fraternity boys killing a ... for good measure. It then goes on to explain that despicable racists are running the major financial institutions in Richmond. Their conversations are the sort contrived in the fetid overwrought imagination that only a devout Leftist could possibly believe in. Conspiracies lurk everywhere. The dialog is simply awful. Unless you're a dyed in the wool Democrat who believes that Dubya stole the election and that Algore would have made a terrific president don't bother with this piece of tripe.
Rating:
Summary: The only mystery of this book is that it...
Review: got published. The plot is dull, uninspired and relies more on coincidence than anything I've read since Charles Dickens. Grinding through this book was less exciting than opening a loaf of bread. If you loved Nancy Drew mysteries this book will still be a challenge because the writing is every bit as absurd as the plot. Worse, the characters are painfully predictable and somehow thought to be interesting because they are so, so, so politically correct. Thus, white males are dumb and greedy. Rich white males and evil, dumb and greedy. But, we are saved because the book is populated by bright, thoughtful, sensitive, tough, smart, tender (but not too tender) and moral women. The minority woman has the moral high ground throughout. Tedious to be confronted by a book wallowing so hopelessly in its own political message. The book ends with a rush as if the author had tired of inventing coincidences and had hit the total number of words agreed to with his publisher. Indeed, the plot is so thin I had the impression that the book was little more than a stab and giving the author's agent something to flog around Hollywood where this sort of drivel wrapped around political correctness might well find a home - then tossed under the casting couch.
Rating:
Summary: The only mystery of this book is that it...
Review: got published. The plot is dull, uninspired and relies more on coincidence than anything I've read since Charles Dickens. Grinding through this book was less exciting than opening a loaf of bread. If you loved Nancy Drew mysteries this book will still be a challenge because the writing is every bit as absurd as the plot. Worse, the characters are painfully predictable and somehow thought to be interesting because they are so, so, so politically correct. Thus, white males are dumb and greedy. Rich white males and evil, dumb and greedy. But, we are saved because the book is populated by bright, thoughtful, sensitive, tough, smart, tender (but not too tender) and moral women. The minority woman has the moral high ground throughout. Tedious to be confronted by a book wallowing so hopelessly in its own political message. The book ends with a rush as if the author had tired of inventing coincidences and had hit the total number of words agreed to with his publisher. Indeed, the plot is so thin I had the impression that the book was little more than a stab and giving the author's agent something to flog around Hollywood where this sort of drivel wrapped around political correctness might well find a home - then tossed under the casting couch.
Rating:
Summary: Biased, boring, and dumb
Review: In Stephen Frey's world, apparently, all the villains are blonde haired fraternity members ("frat boys" in Freyese) or racist businessmen. The only decent people are either poor, members of ethnic minorities, or leftist acitivists. Matters are made worse by an unbelievable plot, plodding writing, and motivations, which to put it kindly, do not ring true. If Mr. Frey has any understanding of the subtleties of human nature or life's ambiguities, he fails to reveal it in "Silent Partner." I have read a lot of thrillers so the law of averages decrees that some of them were not very good. Nevertheless, I can't remember one as bad as this silly left-wing rant.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, predictable & silly
Review: One of the wealthiest men in the world has a job opening. He needs a smart, athletic, beautiful woman who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. How very original? He finds a woman who fills the bill and more.
Silent Partner is entertaining, but like a fairy tale that you have heard several dozen times, it is also predictable. I enjoyed the easy plot, even though it was silly.
This is a commuter book. Little concentration is required to follow the plot. At the end of the tale you will have been entertained and will chuckle to yourself when you remember that I warned you that Silent Partner is predictable and silly.
Three stars and no more.
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat Beleivable
Review: Poor little rich girl meets the richest man,at least in the USA. Lots of intrigue if you can believe it. Some very good twists and turns that keep you reading. I have enjoyed all his books but this one is just not my cup of tea. I will try others though as all good authors sometimes hit you with one that just isn't right for you.
Rating: 
Summary: outstanding great book
Review: right from the start this was a great book starts with the main character Angela Day who has grown up basically from a poor background and has made it through college to a career with sumter bank a premier bank in richmond virginia she is being called upon by one of the worlds richest men to wyoming to a meeting.If angela helps him with his bid to takeover a hot new IT business he will help her get back her sonfrom her cheating ex husband and his rich and influential family.This book has twist and turns at every corner and i could not get threw the last 100 pages fast enough to see how it ends.
Rating: 
Summary: Snore!
Review: This book is definitely not his best. After reading The Take Over and Inner Sanctum, I expected much better. The story was just too predictable and not a very good read.
Rating:
Summary: Snore!
Review: This book is definitely not his best. After reading The Take Over and Inner Sanctum, I expected much better. The story was just too predictable and not a very good read.
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