Trading Reality

Rating:
Summary: A very good read
Review: I found Trading Reality to be very exciting and entertaining - from beginning to end. The plot is great and it's difficult to guess what's going to happen next. You constantly think you've worked it out only to realise that you've been had once again. I found the detailed descriptions of life in The City combined with the interesting world of high technology to be an excellent cocktail. Well written and definitely worth a try...

Rating:
Summary: OK Info-novel Who-dunn-it
Review: Trading Reality is OK.

The story is about a Brit financial-type who takes over his murdered brother's start-up in Scotland's Silicon Glen. He is forced to deal with the conflict of honoring his brother's wishes and his own mercenary instincts.

The bond trader turned entrepreneur reminded me of Po Bronson's last two novels merged into a who-dunn-it, but without the humor. Merging the bond trader and high-tech startup entrepreneur together and layering that on top of a mystery was too blatant a play at a info-novel for me. And it was too predictable. Finally, there were some quirky things about the story. No marital relationship of the story's characters past or present either worked-out or was working out. And the final love-interest did not appear to imply any commitment. Hmmm?

This book is OK, but there are better things to read.

Rating:
Summary: It's OK, but a slight disappointment
Review: When I first read Michael Ridpath's "Free to Trade", I was thoroughly enthralled by the use of bond trading as background for a suspense story line. There have been few truly integrated financial mystery novels. (A couple others are "The Takeover" and "Nest of Vipers.") Due to what I considered an exceptional first novel, I was slightly disappointed by "Trading Reality." Ridpath's latest novel is more cyber-techno than financial; too bad when you consider Ridpath's background in the financial markets. Although he starts the novel in a bond trading room in London, it quickly moves into different territory, that of computer generated virtual reality. That said, this is a pretty good novel, with a fairly intricate and convoluted plot, including a few red herrings, a couple of nasty characters, and a predictable, yet satisfying, ending. I would have preferred if the protagonist developed a more creative financial bailout. Even so, the ending was reminiscent of the classical English sleuth gathering all of the principal characters into one room, making them squirm, and finally announcing the murderer. Frankly, this would probably make a great movie script. It could easily be placed in the USA. Throughout the book, I found myself substituting American locations (Wall Street for London; the coast of Maine for Scotland; Harvard for Oxford), and it still played well. How about it Hollywood!