Shadow Account

Rating:
Summary: Frey's still the money man
Review: This latest release by Frey shows him at the top of his game. The novel deals with a subject that he does well and that is the financial world. The characters are well defined, the action fast paced and the story line reads like a Wall Street Journal article at times. The reader will be challenged to keep up with the plot but it is well worth it. At times, Frey stretches credulaity but the novel is excellent. Not his best, but still worth it. I would recommend this book and it should give reader's a yearning to go back and read his earlier novels.

Rating:
Summary: What, he couldn't work the Mafia or Bigfoot into the story?
Review: To me, this book seemed a lot like Exhibit A in favor of story lines that are narrower and have more depth instead of broad story lines that don't really take the reader inside the story environment. Frey threw a lot of ingredients into this story stew - Wall Street crooks, accounting crooks, big business crooks, political crooks, stripper crooks; whew, let me catch my breath. And I guess that's my primary complaint about this book - it lacks focus. I mean, couldn't you put together a good story with some compelling characters and a couple of surprising plot twists that would be better than one with a bunch of superficial characters and so many plot twists that the reader gets dizzy and throws up on his shoes? I'm just asking.

So, here's a suggestion and a poison tipped dart kind of complaint about this book:
1. Suggestion - if you think you'd like to read good crime fiction, read anything by George Pelecanos or Scott Thurow.
2. Poison tipped dart complaint - at one point in this book which specializes in white collar type, fancy dan accounting crime, the author drops in a scenario where the corporate bad guys cut their capital expenses by two billion dollars and increased earnings by the same amount by selling assets and leasing them back. You might check with your local CPA, but that ain't the way it normally works. Typically, the old expense item would have been the annual depreciation on the capital assets and the new expense item would be the annual lease payments. Both of these items are about an order of magnitude lower than the full amount, so his dollar for dollar trade off doesn't make sense.

Which, puts that nonsense in line with the nonsense storyline - a junior investment banker outsmarting the system and loving his helpmate accounting sweetie while the chess playing Washington nerd outsmarts senior White House staff and political money cronies while the jilted girlfriend stalker helps the crooked inside trader who works for the same boss as our banker hero who..... HELP! I've lost my balance and am in danger of falling down. And I didn't even mention the crooked accountant or corporate crooks or stripper crooks. So, I ask you this: in a story this convoluted, why wasn't there room for the Mafia bad guys and Bigfoot? And, I'll ask you this: why am I giving this book three stars? Just soft hearted I suppose.