Money Wanders : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: LikeVegasDaze
Review: Fifty years ago I was sent to Las Vegas to do a Public Relations campaign that would portray mobsters as kindly, benign, businessmen. Lo and behold, Money Wanders presents a campaign I wish I had access to those many years ago. This book is "right on the money." It doesn't matter if the story is about New Jersy, Chicago, or Las Vegas, the characters appear as part of an international brotherhood.

This is a fun read with an honest plot, and moves toward a satisfying ending. I am on my third re-reading and continue to laugh at the characters who really believe they are "tough" guys. You don't have to be an authority on organized crime to enjoy this book, however you will learn to recognize the difference between Tony Soprano and authentic mobsters.

Rating:
Summary: LikeVegasDaze
Review: Fifty years ago I was sent to Las Vegas to do a Public Relations campaign that would portray mobsters as kindly, benign, businessmen. Lo and behold, Money Wanders presents a campaign I wish I had access to those many years ago. This book is "right on the money." It doesn't matter if the story is about New Jersy, Chicago, or Las Vegas, the characters appear as part of an international brotherhood.

This is a fun read with an honest plot, and moves toward a satisfying ending. I am on my third re-reading and continue to laugh at the characters who really believe they are "tough" guys. You don't have to be an authority on organized crime to enjoy this book, however you will learn to recognize the difference between Tony Soprano and authentic mobsters.

Rating:
Summary: Money Wanders--an excellent read!
Review: I truly enjoyed this book! I was slightly surprised, because I'm not usually interested in mob-related books or films. Thanks to this book's interesting characters, unusual story line, and sheer originality, however, I couldn't put it down. Somehow, Dezenhall has managed to come up with an intelligent, exciting story that is extremely funny, yet has a lot of depth. When I heard it was a "comic thriller" I expected something more slapstick--and was glad to find something far different. It is hard to put a brief descriptive label on this book--so if you enjoy a good, thoughtful story with a lot of laughs and interesting characters, buy Money Wanders!

Rating:
Summary: Right on the Money
Review: Mickey Price is a 95-year-old kindly Jewish grandfather whose past was as notorious as Meyer Lansky's. His pal Irv the Curve was with Dutch Schultz when he was gunned down in Newark in 1935. Both have survived their prohibition era heritage by "seeming" but have not abandoned all ties to their old lives. In his final days Mickey, who sort of controls the Golden Prospect casino in Atlantic City, tells his grandson Jonah Eastman that Philadelphia crime boss Mario Vanni needs to talk with him. Jonah, a 38-year-old Dartmouth grad raised away from the business (with Mickey while he was on the lam in Europe, actually), is called the "Poll Vaulter" in D.C. because of his aggressive methods of shaping public opinion. Mickey dies and Vanni hires Jonah to make him respectable enough to get a casino license, an offer he couldn't refuse.

Here the story bumps around a bit from an "Analyze This" type farce, which it isn't, to a veiled secondhand expose of how la Cosa Nostra operates. For a while it seemed Denzenhall would be content to use characters like Mickey and Irv merely to lob in bits of Mafia lore, like it was the mob that his both JFK and Vince Foster. The subplots of the Vanni makeover, Jonah's romance with Edie the waspy klezmorim singer, his confrontations with Noel who is Vanni's psycho consigliere and everybody's quest for what Mickey left behind start to wander like the money in the title. More than once I stopped to speculate on how this phase of Jonah's life would end, but nothing I imagined came close.

In the last 50 or so pages every piece of Denzenhall's story including many seemingly insignificant references to Indian culture and the mysteries of the Pine Barrens ties together in a very satisfying conclusion. There's also a somewhat thoughtful message about what the real legacy is from one generation to the next. With the exception of a preposterous scene with Jonah and Noel in Carvin' Marvin's Cadillac Seville, Mickey and his crew did a pretty good job of letting Jonah find his way.

Rating:
Summary: Right on the Money
Review: Mickey Price is a 95-year-old kindly Jewish grandfather whose past was as notorious as Meyer Lansky's. His pal Irv the Curve was with Dutch Schultz when he was gunned down in Newark in 1935. Both have survived their prohibition era heritage by "seeming" but have not abandoned all ties to their old lives. In his final days Mickey, who sort of controls the Golden Prospect casino in Atlantic City, tells his grandson Jonah Eastman that Philadelphia crime boss Mario Vanni needs to talk with him. Jonah, a 38-year-old Dartmouth grad raised away from the business (with Mickey while he was on the lam in Europe, actually), is called the "Poll Vaulter" in D.C. because of his aggressive methods of shaping public opinion. Mickey dies and Vanni hires Jonah to make him respectable enough to get a casino license, an offer he couldn't refuse.

Here the story bumps around a bit from an "Analyze This" type farce, which it isn't, to a veiled expose of how la Cosa Nostra operates. For a while it seemed Denzenhall would be content to use characters like Mickey and Irv merely to lob in bits of Mafia lore, like it was the mob that hit both JFK and Vince Foster. The subplots of the Vanni makeover, Jonah's romance with Edie the waspy klezmorim singer, his confrontations with Noel who is Vanni's psycho consigliere and everybody's quest for what Mickey left behind start to wander like the money in the title. More than once I stopped to speculate on how this phase of Jonah's life would end, but nothing I imagined came close to what Denzenhall serves up.

In the last 50 or so pages all the pieces of the story including many seemingly insignificant references to Indian culture and the mysteries of the Pine Barrens tie together in a very satisfying conclusion. There's also a somewhat thoughtful message about what shapes the legacy of the next generation. "Hey, am I gonna be a senator today or am I gonna hit some loan shark with a pipe?" With the exception of a scene with Jonah and Noel in Carvin' Marvin's Cadillac Seville, Mickey and his crew did a pretty good job of letting Jonah find his way.

Rating:
Summary: Read this at the Jersey shore this summer!
Review: OK, here's the brief plot synopsis:
boy living in the modern world of PR/polling and the Internet is drawn back home to New Jersey and the Mob background that his grandfather was prominent in and wanted him to leave behind. It's an interesting merger of a mafia story with modern technology.

I found this on the new book shelve in the library and the synopsis caught my attention. I'm glad I picked it up. This is an entertaining read with a more substance than the typical summer novel. For a first novel, it is excellent, much richer than you would expect. For any novel, this is a fine read, well worth the time investment for you thriller fans out there.

The story was not predictable; you really had to hang in to the end to figure out what was going to happen. The characters get fleshed out as real people. I'd guess the author is from Jersey and knew these kinds of people growing up. He also knows the world of modern polling and media manipulation. Read his bio on the book jacket for some interesting background.

There were a couple of times you'd want to go back and read a sentence or two as some of the metaphors were a little strained but they stood out as exceptions. This guy is a very decent writer. I'll read his next one.

Rating:
Summary: Way to go, Eric!
Review: This has a great concept, and the first two-thirds are quite enjoyable. However, toward the end, it seems to lose its way. What I assumed to be the main plot -- the PR campaign for Vanni -- gets wrapped up abruptly, and other issues take the forefront. Unfortunately, I found those other issues less interesting, and more unlikely.

Overall, not a bad book though.

Rating:
Summary: More Narcissism By A Public Relations Hack
Review: Why am I not suprirsed? A public relations professional decides to write a novel that suggests that the power or PR is so pervasive and important that it can turn the fortunes of a mafia murderer. Only a narcissist like Eric Dezenhall could suggest such a hypothesis. In this case, the main character is a maligned campaign consultant (seems to be patterned after Ed Rollins) who is then hired by a mob leader to help his quest for a New Jersey gaming license.

Suprisingly enough, the plot of the book and its unique characters almost are good enough to give the book a positive recommendation. The pages turn quickly as you read through a story that includes a number of public relations stunts to boost the mobster's standing in the community.

In the end, there are a number of plot twists that give you a bit of a surprise ending but there were too many problems with the book for me to recommend. The biggest of the problems was that dialogue is not handled very well by the author. There were far too many times where I had to put down the book for a few minutes and re-read passages to determine who was saying what in the conversation because Dezenhall did not tag the identifications well.

Finally, the main characters love interest with a musician who plays at his uncle's funeral just didn't work for me. He attempts to use her as the connection to his past/family and how he got mixed up into the the mob, but it never seems very plausible. While the ending is a bit of a surpise, it's not all that satisfying because it is a bit too contrived.

In the end, while most PR pros might think they are so good that they can make a murderer/mobster look good, the facts are that you can spin the facts only so much until people are on to you.

Rating:
Summary: More Narcissism By A Public Relations Hack
Review: Why am I not suprirsed? A public relations professional decides to write a novel that suggests that the power or PR is so pervasive and important that it can turn the fortunes of a mafia murderer. Only a narcissist like Eric Dezenhall could suggest such a hypothesis. In this case, the main character is a maligned campaign consultant (seems to be patterned after Ed Rollins) who is then hired by a mob leader to help his quest for a New Jersey gaming license.

Suprisingly enough, the plot of the book and its unique characters almost are good enough to give the book a positive recommendation. The pages turn quickly as you read through a story that includes a number of public relations stunts to boost the mobster's standing in the community.

In the end, there are a number of plot twists that give you a bit of a surprise ending but there were too many problems with the book for me to recommend. The biggest of the problems was that dialogue is not handled very well by the author. There were far too many times where I had to put down the book for a few minutes and re-read passages to determine who was saying what in the conversation because Dezenhall did not tag the identifications well.

Finally, the main characters love interest with a musician who plays at his uncle's funeral just didn't work for me. He attempts to use her as the connection to his past/family and how he got mixed up into the the mob, but it never seems very plausible. While the ending is a bit of a surpise, it's not all that satisfying because it is a bit too contrived.

In the end, while most PR pros might think they are so good that they can make a murderer/mobster look good, the facts are that you can spin the facts only so much until people are on to you.