Money Matters

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I saw a really weird thing on our dining room table the other day, and I thought: what’s that? And it was my purse. I simply hadn’t needed it for the past 60 (but who’s counting) days. And inside was my wallet. I thought—for the first time in forever--I have no idea how much money is in that wallet.

It was incredibly weird.

But when it comes to finances—big time finances—there’s no one more on the inside (in a good way, not like that Senator) (allegedly) than Larry Light.

His new financial thriller--written “before”—is titled CRASH.

Oh, yeah.

And today he gives us his two cents. And a whole lot more.

Money Matters: The Rebirth of the Financial Thriller

By Larry Light

America’s unbalanced financial situation has been apparent for some time now. It started with the 2008-09 financial crisis, which showed how Wall Street sharpies could earn dubious millions and not suffer any consequences, while ordinary people lost their homes. Then came a long period of achingly slow economic recovery, as wages stagnated for most, but the 1% expanded their fortunes mightily. And now, amid a horrible pandemic, we’ve reached unemployment of Great Depression-like proportions.

The point is that, regardless of income level or political affiliation, economic matters have become more and more important in everyday life. And that, seems to me, has prompted a resurgence of financial thrillers.

Sure, I have a dog in this fight. My new thriller, Crash, which just came out, revolves around a plot by Wall Street honchos to wreck the world’s economy and emerge from the ruins as the last solvent ones standing—thus allowing them to rake in money that used to belong to others.

The only ones who can stop them are a computer whiz at an investment bank and her boyfriend. I wrote it with David Hagberg, a New York Times best-selling author, who alas died in the fall, after we’d completed the book.

We figured that we could warn readers of problems they might not know about, but which affect them--because their wealth, even if modest, is linked to the stock and bond markets. And that invested money determines whether they can buy a house, pay for their kids’ education and retire in security. And what stands in the way of their dreams? People whom Theodore Roosevelt called “malefactors of great wealth.”

David and I set out to tell this tale in an entertaining fashion aimed at showing folks how Wall Street works in an easily understood and fun way. Our skills complemented one another. I’m a financial journalist, having worked at the Wall Street Journal and other such places, and David was the master of the broad-ranging, high-stakes plot.

During times of economic unease, financial thrillers have an appeal. The last time this happened was in the financially fraught 1970s, when Paul Erdman made a grand entrance onto the book scene with popular reads like The Silver Bears and the Crash of ’79.  More on Paul later.

Nowadays, the increased public appetite for tales of finance is seen in the popularity of TV shows like Showtime’s Billions and HBO’s Succession. But a steady stream of books about money matters has developed.

One of the best practitioners of this is Joseph Finder, a best-selling writer who loves to immerse himself in the milieus he’s describing. His latest, House on Fire, pits his hero, Nick Heller, who runs a private intelligence firm, against a big pharmaceutical company and the family controlling it. Seems they’ve cashed in big-time on opiates. Finder digs into this world of enormous riches and corporate power to get to the truth.

When it comes to the sociology of the business elite, Finder has a deft touch that pleasingly includes satire. In Killer Instinct, a thwarted electronics salesman gets dressed down by his braying jackass of a boss, who loves to blare platitudes like: “There’s no I in team.” To which the salesman retorts, at least to himself: “Well, there’s an I in idiot.”

Former Wall Streeter Michael Sears brings his strong financial background and stylish prose to his Jason Stafford series, about a stock trader who served time in jail and returns as an investigator of financial crimes, and one who knows both the light and dark side of the business. His love for his autistic son makes Stafford an exceptionally compelling hero.

In his first job after getting his MBA, Christopher Reich worked for a Swiss bank. Using that experience, he produced Numbered Account, a novel of dirty doings in Switzerland’s secretive banking industry, which became a best seller. Lately, he has launched a series starring Simon Riske, an industrial spy with a taste for the high life a la James Bond. In Reich’s newest book, Crown Jewel, he’s hired by a casino magnate to get to the bottom of a cheating ring that is costing this billionaire a fortune at his deluxe Monte Carlo gambling emporium.

Investment banker H.T. Narea has a tale of international intrigue in The Fund, where a Middle Eastern hedge fund honcho tries to bring down the West’s economy. Narea brought to bear his career in debt restructuring, private equity and syndicated finance to this well-informed plot. (Disclosure: He blurbed Crash). He got his start in fiction researching and editing books by his father-in-law, Paul Erdman, the godfather of financial fiction.

Erdman, who died in 2007, was an economist with a colorful past. An American, he founded a Swiss bank that went under, which earned him a 10-month stint in solitary without being charged of a crime. He was let out on a $133,000 bond and promptly skipped bail to return to the U.S. He used his time in prison to write the beginning of The Billion Dollar Sure Thing, about a machination to control the world’s monetary assets. His book went on to win the Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America in 1974 for best first novel.

The 1970s were a time of great economic turmoil, like today. The Arab oil embargo hit Americans where they lived—in their cars. Long gas lines formed, and people in the U.S., an invincible nation after World War II, got a taste of vulnerability. They didn’t like it. 

Then came stagflation, an unwelcome mix of stagnant economic growth and high inflation. Meanwhile, crime was rising and cities seemed unlivable. Things seemed out of control.

And at the core, the root cause was financial. No wonder Erdman found a ready audience for his chronicles of underhanded doings in the world of high finance, with regular people ending up with the dirty end.

Other similar shenanigans are going on these days in real life. We’ll find out about them soon enough and gnash our teeth. And someone will have scarfed up big bucks in the meantime. As Erdman wrote in his first novel, describing the scheme to crash the U.S. dollar and get rich off of the resulting mess: “Imagine what a Papa Kennedy, a Bernard Baruch, or even a Karl Marx would have done with a situation like this.”

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yeah, it’s….so depressing. But I do remember being fascinated by Michael Lewis’ THE BIG SHORT, and the amazing movie that was made from it.  (You DID see that, right?)

SO what do you think, reds are readers? Do we want books that reflect the times, or distract us? I do think financial thrillers are incredibly valuable—they have the glory of teaching us something while telling us a story.  And in good hands, like Larry’s, they can reveal the inner workings of the financial machine that literally runs our lives.

When the grocery delivery person came yesterday, I asked whether he wanted his extra tip-on-top-of-the-standard in cash? Or added to the app?

He did not hesitate. “Cash,” he said.

And yeah, let's chat. If we dare ask Larry: what do YOU think will happen?

Lawrence Light is currently the markets editor of CIO magazine. He has been a writer/editor for most of the major financial news sources of our time: Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and has written for Fortune, Money, Investopedia, CBS Money-watch, and many more. He has written the Karen Glick books, Too Rich to Live, and Fear and Greed. His short stories appear frequently, including one in Wall Street Noir, a collection from Akashic. His latest thriller is CRASH, with David Hagberg which came out in April 2020 and features a threatened economic apocalypse.

CRASH

THE SECOND GREAT DEPRESSION IS COMING. THE WORLD’S ECONOMIES ARE GROANING UNDER TOO MUCH DEBT. IF ONE THING GOES WRONG, THE ENTIRE RICKETY SYSTEM COLLAPSES. NOW, ACCLAIMED AWARD-WINNING NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING NOVELIST DAVID HAGBERG AND RENOWNED FINANCIAL REPORTER LAWRENCE LIGHT HAVE COMBINED FORCES TO DRAMATIZE―HOUR BY HOUR―HOW THIS ALL-TOO-REAL CATASTROPHE COULD GO DOWN IN CRASH.

With debt-burdened governments and businesses worldwide about to go bust, a cabal of Wall Street big shots plot to destroy the globe’s stock exchanges. To provide that one thing that goes wrong. In 24 hours, a powerful computer worm will smash the exchanges and spark an international panic, pushing a debt-laden world into the abyss. The Wall Street gang’s investment bank will be the last one standing, able to make a killing amid the ruins.

But one person, who works for their bank as a computer expert, spots the worm embedded deep in its network. Cassy Levin invents a program to destroy the cyber-intruder. Angered by Cassy’s discovery, her bosses order her kidnapping.

Her boyfriend, a former Navy SEAL, is alarmed at Cassy’s disappearance and unravels the plot. Ben Whalen only has until the next morning to save the woman he loves and prevent the economic apocalypse.

This story is based on the genuine threat posed by towering debt, which will make the 2008 financial crisis look puny.

Kim Fay, Author of THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES on the "Vice" of Research, and a book giveaway!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Please join with me to welcome novelist Kim Fay officially to the Jungle Red Writers blog. (Kim's a regular in the comments section, so you may already know her!) Her Edgar Award-shortlisted first novel, THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES just came out in paperback, and she's here to talk about her "vice" of research — one of my obsessions as well.

If you don't know Kim Fay and her work yet, you should. Kim's the author of the historical mystery novel The Map of Lost Memories, the Mystery Writers of America's 2013 Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel by an American Author. She's also written the food memoir Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam, winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards’ Best Asian Cuisine Book in the United States. She lived in Vietnam for four years, has traveled throughout the region for the past twenty, and now makes her home in Los Angeles.

Kim and I were fellow nominees for the 2013 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author — and when I read her nominated novel, THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES —I absolutely fell in love with her writing. Booklist gave THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES a starred review and said, "Fay’s extraordinary first novel has everything great historical adventure fiction should—strikingly original setting, exhilarating plot twists, and a near-impossible quest . . . Every word of this evocative literary expedition feels deliberately chosen, each phrase full of meaning."

Here's a description:

In 1925 the international treasure-hunting scene is a man’s world, and no one understands this better than Irene Blum, who is passed over for a coveted museum curatorship because she is a woman. Seeking to restore her reputation, she sets off in search of a temple believed to house the lost history of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer civilization. As Irene travels through Shanghai's lawless back streets and Saigon’s opium-filled lanes, she joins forces with a Communist temple robber and an intriguing nightclub owner with a complicated past. What they bring to light deep within the humidity-soaked Cambodian jungle will do more than change history—it will solve the mysteries of their own lives.

Today Kim Fay joins us to talk about her research process, 

and also to give away three copies of 

THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES.

KIM FAY: When I tell people that it took me fourteen years to write my first published novel (I’m also the proud owner of many unpublished ones), it’s true and it’s not true. Yes, from the day I started it until the day my agent felt it was ready to send out, fourteen years passed … but not all of that time was spent writing. Some of it was spent editing travel guidebooks, working on a non-fiction book and indulging in one of my greatest vices: research.

I was that kid who turned her reports in early because I loved investigating the culture of Hawaii or the history of the Bicentennial so much that I’d gathered all the information I needed within a few days. I worshiped at the spines of my family’s set of encyclopedias—I could decide I wanted to know something and look it up, or I could simply open a volume at random and discover something entirely new. My grandpa did not buy me dolls. He bought me Time-Life series. The Old West with twenty-six volumes including my favorite, The Women. This Fabulous Century with a book for each decade, filled with archival photos, newspaper articles and cultural tidbits. 

I have heard some writers say that there’s such a thing as too much research, and when it comes to stuffing everything you’ve learned about a subject into a novel, I agree. As for too much researching? Impossible! It’s a joy, it’s gratifying, and I feel that it makes my work so much stronger.
Take, for example, my first novel, The Map of Lost Memories, set in 1920’s China and Indochina. Although I lived in the region for years, I obviously needed to do a lot of research to understand that part of the world during that time period. My main character loses her job at a museum and sets off for Cambodia to find a lost treasure; to understand her and the world she operated in, I read eight different books on the history of art collecting and looting. Was I going to use all the information I learned in these books? Not even close. But the wealth of knowledge I gained bolstered my confidence and gave me a firm understanding the context for the story I was choosing to tell.

I am working on a few new books now, one being the first volume of a mystery series set in Los Angeles in the 1970s. The idea was sparked by my meeting with a woman who was one of the founders of the L.A. Times food paper. It’s not well-known that in its heyday the weekend food paper was a 50-plus-page magazine and its staff operated one of the largest test kitchens in the country. My desire to know more about this world (by conducting interviews, digging through old food papers and testing old recipes) began to shape a character named Barb, a housewife and food writer whose life changes dramatically when a young P.I. moves in next door.

I decided that Barb was addicted to mystery novels as a young woman in the late 1950s. The next thing I knew, I was on AbeBooks at midnight ordering the first ten Edgar award winners for best novel so that I could understand my character through her reading habits. Turns out I also want to learn about the rise of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which was born with the efforts to save our downtown library. So guess what? Barb’s husband is an architectural conservationist whose career trajectory follows the failures and successes of twentieth-century conservation efforts in L.A. As for 1970s L.A., it has always fascinated me, which is why I find myself at the downtown library prowling through local magazine archives and reading the 1971 Los Angeles phone book as if it was the latest New York Times bestselling page-turner.

One lesson I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) is to never fall so much in love with a piece of research that you bend your story out of shape just to fit it in. No matter how much I’ve read or know about a subject or issue, it’s important that I let my research be an organic part of the actual writing process. The second it stands in the way of the story’s flow, it must go.

So, how about you? Do you like researching? Do you have a favorite topic? Have you ever OD’d on research? Has too much research ever gotten in the way for you as a writer? As a reader?

All readers who comment on this post with be entered into a random drawing to win one of three copies of The Map of Lost Memories, compliments of Kim's publisher, Ballantine Books/Random House.

Find out more about Kim Fay and her books at her website.
Friend her on Facebook here.
And follow her on Twitter here.

SNOW DAY

      **On Bent Road, a battered red truck cruises ominously along the prairie; a lonely little girl dresses in her dead aunt’s clothes; a boy hefts his father’s rifle in search of a target; a mother realizes she no longer knows how to protect her children. It is a place where people learn: Sometimes killing is the kindest way.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have no idea, though I’ve really tried to remember, when the moment was that I decided I was a writer. I had an English teacher in high school, Mr. Thornburg, who taught me about Shakespeare and the wonders of analytical thought, and once gave me an A for a paper comparing The Faerie Queen with Out of the Silent Planet. I do remember that.

I  remember, as a semi-grown-up, maybe age 22, writing a story for Rolling Stone about Susan Ford’s prom at the White House. I remember seeing that in print, and staring at the page in wonder.

I remember when I finished Prime Time. I typed ‘The End” and burst into tears.

Lori Roy, though, does have an idea when she began. She’s come a long way since then—and now her first novel, the lyrical and moving BENT ROAD, is an Edgar nominee. Something must have gone right.

Grab a cup of tea or coffee, and maybe curl up in a chair. And listen, for a moment or two, as Lori remembers—it all began on a

        SNOW DAY

           by Lori Roy

 

Brother flips on the radio and rolls the dial until a familiar voice speaks to us. I stand in mismatched socks and faded flannel pajamas, a patchwork quilt wrapped around my shoulders. When the heater clicks on, I shuffle a few steps until I stand over the floor vent. My quilt traps the warm air that begins to flow. Brother gives me a shove because no fair hogging all the hot air.

In the kitchen, Mother pulls a skillet from the shelf over the oven and fishes a spatula from the utensil drawer. The announcer begins to read from his list. We shout for Mother to please be quiet because we can’t hear the radio. USD 320…that’s Wamego. USD 475…that’s Junction City. Brother pounds both hands on the table, one on either side of the radio. Come on USD 383. Come on USD 383.  I slide one foot after the other until I again stand over the vent, trap all the hot air and close my eyes. Silently, only mouthing the words, I say the same as Brother.  Come on USD 383.

The announcer says, “USD 383.” It’s official.  Our school district is closed for the day.

Brother gives the table one last smack, runs for his room and his mattress springs creak as he dives back into bed. I join Mother in the kitchen and sit at the table while she scrambles half dozen eggs. She’ll add ham and cheese before she’s done.  Outside, the drifts have piled up against our front door and the plows haven’t yet reached our street. A lone set of tire tracks cuts through the fresh snow. At the end of May, when we should be getting out of school for summer break, we’ll have to make up this day, but for today, it’s a snow-day. No school.

Unlike Brother, I don’t want to go back to bed. I am awake, wide awake. Too windy to play outside. Maybe later if the snow stops, but it’s too cold for good snowballs. The snow won’t stick. So, instead, I’ll write a book. I have the whole day. How long could it take? How hard could it be?

This time, I sit alongside the vent in the floor, again trap the warm air with my quilt and tap a number two pencil on the tablet Mother found for me. I keep tapping, and while I can’t think of anything to write, I do see a picture in my mind.  A boy. He’s thirteen or fourteen—about my brother’s age. He’s sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree. He’s lonely, I think. I don’t know who he is, what has happened to him or what will happen to him, but my novel is definitely about this boy.

I ask Mother if she has any cardboard. She tells me no, but she does have a small shirt box—a leftover from Christmas morning. Perfect. It’s thick like a novel would be. I fetch a box of Crayolas from my room, return to my spot over the vent, and design and color my novel’s cover art. It’s a picture of the lonely boy leaning against a tree with no leaves. I’m no good at drawing the leaves.

In the year since my first novel—BENT ROAD—came out, I am often asked when I started writing. This is the story I tell in answer to that question. I wasn’t disciplined in those days and never made it past designing the novel’s cover. In truth, I wasn’t disciplined enough until I hit my thirties. 

So perhaps I should say that’s when I started writing.

  For about ten years, I wrote every day. I gathered rejection slips for unwanted short stories, attended a few writers’ conferences, met some great writer-friends, won a small award here and there, gathered more rejections slips and finally wrote and sold BENT ROAD.  And while the novel I started on that snow-day back in the mid 70s never made it beyond a hastily colored shirt box, I’d like to believe the young boy I envisioned did find his way into print. He is Daniel Scott, one of my point-of-view characters in BENT ROAD.

Given this, I will continue to say I first became a writer on that snow-day when I was eight-years-old.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah. I'm reading Bent Road right now, and it's absolutely original--you can tell, from this essay alone, how special it is.  So, Reds—if you write, when did that happen? If you read, when did you realize how important it was to you? A copy of BENT ROAD to one lucky commenter!

*************************************************

Lori Roy was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas where she graduated from Kansas State University. Before beginning her writing career, Lori worked as a tax accountant in the public sector and later for Hallmark Cards. Bent Road, Lori's first novel, was named a 2011 New York Times Notable Crime Book and has been nominated for the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. Additionally, BENT ROAD was named One of the Best for 2011 by the Library Journal and one of the top 100 books for 2011 by the Kansas City Star.  Lori currently lives with her family in west central Florida.