Need You Now

Starred review from October 31, 2011
A Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff proportions drives this winning financial thriller from bestseller Grippando (Money to Burn). Abe Cushman, “a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market and a force on Wall Street trading for nearly fifty years,” commits suicide just hours before he’s supposed to report to federal authorities on charges of massive securities fraud. Upwards of $60 billion has disappeared, and some very dangerous investors are extremely upset. Dragged into the hunt for the missing money is Patrick Lloyd, “the junior member on a team of high-net-worth specialists” at the Manhattan office of the International Bank of Switzerland, along with his fellow BOS employee and former girlfriend, Lilly Scanlon. Grippando slowly reveals the twists and turns of his intricate plot while fueling the proceedings with a steady supply of action. A solid ending will leave readers wondering if the author has come up with a solution to the real-life Madoff mysteries that still remain.

October 15, 2011
Despite its similarities to Christopher Reich's 1997 novel, Numbered Account (intrigue at a Swiss bank, conspiracy, a young banker risking his life to get to the truth), this stand-alone from the author of the Jack Swyteck series is a timely and solid plot-driven read. Wall Street is still reeling from the discovery that financial wizard Abe Cushman was running a massive Ponzi schemeechoes of the Bernard Madoff scandal are presumably not coincidentaland Patrick Lloyd, a financial advisor at a prestigious Swiss bank, is shocked to learn that his ex-girlfriend could have been a major player in Cushman's fraud. The book is full of surprising revelations, which it would be a shame to reveal in a review (hint: they involve false identities, covert intelligence-gathering operations, and family connections). The characters may be a tad on the thin sidethey never quite leap off the pagebut the story more than carries the day. Another Grippando gripper. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Grippando's sales record and continuing status as an A-list thriller writer ensures an audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2011
In Grippando's latest (Afraid of the Dark, 2011, etc.), a Madoff-like character pilfers billions, but some victims don't complain. They kill. Abe Cushman was the hot-from-the-headlines Ponzi purveyor who pulled a Houdini with $60 billion. Now his suicide has left the money lost in the shadows. Patrick Lloyd is a young financial analyst for the International Bank of Switzerland, a too-big-to-fail institution luxuriating on huge accounts accessible only by code numbers. The SEC is hamstrung, but the FBI isn't. Patrick is persuaded by an FBI agent to seek assignment in Singapore. He agrees for selfish reasons. In Singapore, Patrick met and bedded Lilly Scanlon, another BOS analyst. Lilly was the agent for the electronic transfers of $2 billion flowing between Cushman and Gerry Collins' GC Investments in Florida, one of the scheme's feeder funds. Now Collins has been garroted, and Lilly is on the lam. Tony Martin, a witness-protected mobster bilked by Collins, confessed to the murder, but there are other bad actors involved. One is Manu Robledo, an Argentine with connections to South America's Tri-Border region, a lawless outpost where guns and drugs are sold and terrorists find warm welcome. Lilly lands in New York seeking Patrick's help, and as they investigate, the innocent and the guilty are kidnapped, tortured and killed. A complex and mind-dizzying shell game, Grippando's tale is heavy on action and filled with the stereotypical characters necessary to keep pages turning. The new BOS chief is a former Treasury official who must find the money or lose more than his career. There's Mongoose, a one-time covert agent. And then there's a lowly quantitative analyst, a "quant," who diagrammed a plot tracing the billions through a mysterious project code-named BAQ and into hawalas, a worldwide informal banking and money-transfer system often used by the wrong kind of people. Agreeably entertaining, Grippando's novel adds up the collateral damage when billions belonging to the wrong kind of people go missing.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2011

Swiss banks, which have always retained a cachet of confidentiality and mystery, have proved excellent fodder for many a thriller's plot, and Grippando's latest is no exception. In the wake of the suicide of Ponzi-scheme mastermind Abe Cushman (think Bernie Madoff), Patrick Lloyd, a Wall Street adviser for the Bank of Switzerland, is sent to its Singapore branch to discover what Lilly Scanlon may know about her client's scheme. When Patrick and Lilly quickly fall in love, they are imperiled as Cushman's most dangerous investors seek to recover their money. VERDICT Grippando's growing legion of fans will be delighted that recurring character FBI agent Andie Henning (Afraid of the Dark) makes an appearance here. Readers who enjoy a good thriller with a constantly twisting plot will appreciate this timely novel. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/11; Grippando is also a lawyer who works at the firm that filed one of the first lawsuits to recover the money of Madoff's victims.--Ed.]--Vicki L. Gregory, Univ. of South Florida Sch. of Information, Tampa

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.