Blown - Softcover

Smith, Mark Haskell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802128149 ISBN 13: 9780802128140

Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat, 2018

Synopsis

Hailed as “the slightly more well-adjusted offspring of Hunter S. Thompson and James Ellroy” (Los Angeles Times), Mark Haskell Smith returns with a wildly entertaining satire of corporate greed, sexual desire, and crime in the global financial services industry.

Bryan LeBlanc worked his way up into a plum position on Wall Street as the boy genius of the foreign exchange desk. Surrounded by acolytes of the free market, the true believers, the U.S. Marines of capitalism―“the few, the proud, the completely full of themselves”―Bryan soon realizes that being honest at a dishonest job is not the path to success. He decides to give Wall Street a taste of its own medicine and hatches an intricate plan to disappear permanently with just enough misappropriated money―and sailing classes―to spend his golden years cruising the Caribbean.

Bryan quickly learns that being a criminal, even a really smart one, is more complicated than he thought. He finds himself on the run in the Cayman Islands, wanted for murder. On his trail is an irresponsible team of investigators sent by his Wall Street firm, hellbent on reclaiming the millions before their clients notice its missing: his boss, Seo-yun Kim, who’s committed to not only clearing her name but escaping her suffocating fiancé and their pending nuptials; the investment bank’s collections agent, Neal Nathanson, depressed over a recent break-up with his boyfriend; and an ex-cop from Curaçao, Piet Room, who has traded in his badge for spouse spying as a private investigator. Their efforts are complicated by an Australian sailor begrudgingly circumnavigating the globe to fundraise for breast cancer awareness.

Wickedly funny, ribald, and sharp-eyed, BLOWN starts as a simple case of embezzlement and explodes into a fatal high-stakes gamble for money and the pursuit of happiness.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of five novels, including Raw: A Love Story and Salty (which was adapted into a major motion picture called Gun Shy), as well as the nonfiction books Naked at Lunch and Heart of Dankness. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Vulture. He lives in Los Angeles.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bryan knew that eventually they would get around to unlocking his computer and going through his accounts. It would take them a couple of days, more or less, and then they’d know he’d ripped them off. If his plan succeeded, he’d leave this re-sort and have a few days to create a false trail. Then he could collect his money and disappear. Bryan thought he’d been smart about it, thought he’d covered his tracks, but worried that he might have made a mistake, might have underestimated Seo-yun or whatever tech person they were sure to put on his case. Maybe they’d figure it out sooner. For all he knew, they could be on their way to the Dominican Republic right now. He reflexively looked over his shoulder and then, seeing sunbathers rubbing lotion on their bodies, heaved a sigh.

Who knew being a criminal was so stressful?

He’d justified ripping off the company a hundred times in his mind. They never hesitated to exploit the weaknesses of others so why shouldn’t others exploit them right back? Just the thought of the little guy, Joe Q. Public or Jane Doe, in-vesting their life savings into a rigged game―a system that sanctioned corruption and insider trading, a money churning behemoth that spit out trades every nano-second for the banks―the unfairness of it all nagged at him, like a flea bite that wouldn’t go away. But then everyone knows that’s the way Wall Street works.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0802128149
• ISBN 13: 9780802128140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304