Murder in the corporate headquarters of an international oil company; a beautiful psychotic driven to revenge; one man's obsession with stopping corporate downsizing . . . this is the thrilling heart of Involuntary Separation. On one side: Corporate America as embodied by the diabolical Chairman of the Board. At the center: John McCall, a brilliant financial analyst promoted to Vice President of Finance and directed to effect a dramatic corporate downsizing. From across an ocean: Beatrice Winter, whose father killed himself after the Chairman drove his company into bankruptcy. In the balance: the lives of millions of American families. Confronting one of the most consequential issues of our time, Involuntary Separation compels us to see what really motivates corporate downsizings and why we must stop them if we expect our great society to survive. Rick Lacey shows Wall Street what it has missed and Main Street what it must do.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
. . . complex and deftly written . . . exciting and savage unfolding drama that compels readers total attention from first page to last. -- Midwest Book Review, November 2002
From the Author
I want to alert readers that I seeded the novel with some revelations concerning corporate corruption. As a former financial analyst and corporate insider, I have a unique perspective. Don’t be too quick to dismiss alarming business scenes as products of an author’s imagination.
It’s my hope that the novel will fuel a national debate on the practice of corporate downsizing which in my opinion is the most blatant example of corporate greed and represents a crime that has been perpetrated on millions of American families. Corporate boardrooms have been laughing at our gullibility for over a decade, and it’s time we stopped them. They’ve duped the American people into believing that firing millions of hard working Americans and devastating their families just to temporarily inflate the price of their stock and make themselves millionaires is somehow justified. It isn’t, and I know you’ll agree Involuntary Separation makes the point.
Those of you who have lost their jobs or have seen their stock portfolios plummet are free to take some precarious delight in the murder of corporate executives in my novel.
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More About the Author
Rick Lacey, Author, Ghostwriter, Speaker
His father's death set the course for his life as it brought the revelation that men in his family die young. That came as a shock and caused him to set off to cram a lifetime of experience into too few years. He's now 59 and still in perfect health. Though he already has that lifetime of experience his philosophy of living won't change.
Briefly and in reverse order, this is how he's used those years:
Presently, he's engaged as an anti-BP activist and anti-BP speaker.
When not otherwise involved, he enjoys a full life in Cape Coral which includes golf, boating, fishing, motorcycle riding, swimming, sunning, and all the indulgences of the southwest Florida lifestyle. He parties with new friends and has visits from family and old friends. He stays current and continues to read, research, and learn.
His last experience in the workforce was three years ending in 2009 as Controller for the Sundial Beach & Golf Resort and the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club on Sanibel Island. It was a stimulating experience and one that he needed to bring himself current with today's business practices. He enjoyed the work and met some unique characters.
The prior six years were spent freelancing as a ghostwriter and as a member of his wife's real estate team. He doesn't discuss ghostwriting projects and will deny involvement with any particular project. The real estate business had $8 million in annual sales at its peak and they invested privately in condos, building lots, and single family houses.
Before settling in Florida, he spent two years traveling and writing his third novel On the Road Again. It was written in the voice of Jack Kerouac who he considers the greatest American writer.
The prior two years were spent enjoying family and writing his second novel Involuntary Separation, Corporate Downsizing Gone Fatally Wrong. He poured his heart and conscience into that novel and is extremely proud of every aspect of it. It's a fictionalized account of real events inside BP written to start a national dialogue on the issue of corporate downsizing. He also wrote a financial manual during that period called Secrets of Early Retirement which is no longer in print.
The previous eight years were spent at BP. He started as an accountant in Products Trading and quickly advanced and learned. In his first position he changed a process and saved the company a million dollars annually.
His philosophy of life combined with a mid-life crisis at age 40 brought about the urge to immortalize myself. He wrote his first novel Cat Fever while still a BP employee. He doesn't recommend that novel, but we have some if anyone insists on reading it.
Eventually he became a BP Senior Financial Analyst and wrote computer models and countless financial reports. He observed what he feels was the corruption of one of America's original great corporations by one of Britain's most evil men. When he refused to participate in a brutal corporate downsizing my job was eliminated.
Before BP he worked twelve years at the Lincoln Electric Company in the infamous Lincoln Incentive System. During the last years of that period, he earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Cleveland State University. In the middle years, he helped my wife and mother raise his kids. During the early years he lived a bachelor's life pursuing women, gambling, drinking, and otherwise chasing life experience.
He was born in Pennsylvania and spent his first years in an Allegheny Mountain coal-mining town. The family escaped to San Francisco before settling in a suburb of Cleveland where Rick grew up enjoying a middle-class lifestyle and old-fashioned family values.
Intertwined in that life he invested in real estate and the stock market, traded bond futures and index options, and counted cards at Blackjack tables. He's been sued and defended himself, even winning a case in Ohio's Court of Appeals and beating the IRS in tax court. He's climbed mountains and glaciers and explored deserts, caves, and rain forests. He's rode in a hot air balloon, bungie jumped, hang-glided, shot the rapids, skied, ski dived, and scuba dived. He's dined in exclusive restaurants and dirt-floor cantinas. He worked on a shrimp boat and witnessed a murder. He's slept in the fanciest hotels and camped under the stars. He's been in bar fights, been pepper sprayed, and spent nights in jail. He's come face-to-face with rattlesnake and grizzly bear and admired nature's wonders from her most beautiful redwood forest to her most savage devastation. He's enjoyed desert sex and Arctic Circle sex, honeymoon-suite sex and trailer-park sex. He soaked in desert hot springs and swam in mountain lakes. He's been to Roswell and Area 51 and watched a Space Shuttle blast off. He waded the Rio Grande and cruised Prince William Sound. He's hitchhiked across the country and flown across oceans. He's caught King Salmon and watched Humpback whales. He's been chased by Indian braves and panhandled by Indian alcoholics. He's hit a golf ball further than Tiger Woods and seen more of America than John Muir.
As important as education and experience are to a full life are the people one meets and he's been privileged to meet some characters. From the murderer to the philanthropist, the Nobel scholar to the Hopi elder, the billionaire to the bag lady, the corporate executive to the limo driver, the Aztec stud to the Korean lesbian, the librarian to the stripper, the rock star to the groupie, the laid-back Jamaican to the proper English Lord, the politician to the priest, the whore to the nun, the lunatic boss to the profectionist golf pro, the cowboy just wanting a bourbon and a hot meal to the Chairman of the Board bent on ruling the world he learned something from them all.
Though hardly the sort of life of which biographies are demanded, it's not yet over.
His father's death set the course for his life as it brought the revelation that men in his family die young. That came as a shock and caused him to set off to cram a lifetime of experience into too few years. He's now 59 and still in perfect health. Though he already has that lifetime of experience his philosophy of living won't change.
Briefly and in reverse order, this is how he's used those years:
Presently, he's engaged as an anti-BP activist and anti-BP speaker.
When not otherwise involved, he enjoys a full life in Cape Coral which includes golf, boating, fishing, motorcycle riding, swimming, sunning, and all the indulgences of the southwest Florida lifestyle. He parties with new friends and has visits from family and old friends. He stays current and continues to read, research, and learn.
His last experience in the workforce was three years ending in 2009 as Controller for the Sundial Beach & Golf Resort and the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club on Sanibel Island. It was a stimulating experience and one that he needed to bring himself current with today's business practices. He enjoyed the work and met some unique characters.
The prior six years were spent freelancing as a ghostwriter and as a member of his wife's real estate team. He doesn't discuss ghostwriting projects and will deny involvement with any particular project. The real estate business had $8 million in annual sales at its peak and they invested privately in condos, building lots, and single family houses.
Before settling in Florida, he spent two years traveling and writing his third novel On the Road Again. It was written in the voice of Jack Kerouac who he considers the greatest American writer.
The prior two years were spent enjoying family and writing his second novel Involuntary Separation, Corporate Downsizing Gone Fatally Wrong. He poured his heart and conscience into that novel and is extremely proud of every aspect of it. It's a fictionalized account of real events inside BP written to start a national dialogue on the issue of corporate downsizing. He also wrote a financial manual during that period called Secrets of Early Retirement which is no longer in print.
The previous eight years were spent at BP. He started as an accountant in Products Trading and quickly advanced and learned. In his first position he changed a process and saved the company a million dollars annually.
His philosophy of life combined with a mid-life crisis at age 40 brought about the urge to immortalize myself. He wrote his first novel Cat Fever while still a BP employee. He doesn't recommend that novel, but we have some if anyone insists on reading it.
Eventually he became a BP Senior Financial Analyst and wrote computer models and countless financial reports. He observed what he feels was the corruption of one of America's original great corporations by one of Britain's most evil men. When he refused to participate in a brutal corporate downsizing my job was eliminated.
Before BP he worked twelve years at the Lincoln Electric Company in the infamous Lincoln Incentive System. During the last years of that period, he earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Cleveland State University. In the middle years, he helped my wife and mother raise his kids. During the early years he lived a bachelor's life pursuing women, gambling, drinking, and otherwise chasing life experience.
He was born in Pennsylvania and spent his first years in an Allegheny Mountain coal-mining town. The family escaped to San Francisco before settling in a suburb of Cleveland where Rick grew up enjoying a middle-class lifestyle and old-fashioned family values.
Intertwined in that life he invested in real estate and the stock market, traded bond futures and index options, and counted cards at Blackjack tables. He's been sued and defended himself, even winning a case in Ohio's Court of Appeals and beating the IRS in tax court. He's climbed mountains and glaciers and explored deserts, caves, and rain forests. He's rode in a hot air balloon, bungie jumped, hang-glided, shot the rapids, skied, ski dived, and scuba dived. He's dined in exclusive restaurants and dirt-floor cantinas. He worked on a shrimp boat and witnessed a murder. He's slept in the fanciest hotels and camped under the stars. He's been in bar fights, been pepper sprayed, and spent nights in jail. He's come face-to-face with rattlesnake and grizzly bear and admired nature's wonders from her most beautiful redwood forest to her most savage devastation. He's enjoyed desert sex and Arctic Circle sex, honeymoon-suite sex and trailer-park sex. He soaked in desert hot springs and swam in mountain lakes. He's been to Roswell and Area 51 and watched a Space Shuttle blast off. He waded the Rio Grande and cruised Prince William Sound. He's hitchhiked across the country and flown across oceans. He's caught King Salmon and watched Humpback whales. He's been chased by Indian braves and panhandled by Indian alcoholics. He's hit a golf ball further than Tiger Woods and seen more of America than John Muir.
As important as education and experience are to a full life are the people one meets and he's been privileged to meet some characters. From the murderer to the philanthropist, the Nobel scholar to the Hopi elder, the billionaire to the bag lady, the corporate executive to the limo driver, the Aztec stud to the Korean lesbian, the librarian to the stripper, the rock star to the groupie, the laid-back Jamaican to the proper English Lord, the politician to the priest, the whore to the nun, the lunatic boss to the profectionist golf pro, the cowboy just wanting a bourbon and a hot meal to the Chairman of the Board bent on ruling the world he learned something from them all.
Though hardly the sort of life of which biographies are demanded, it's not yet over.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Psychological Thriller,
By Pat (Punta Gorda, Florida) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Involuntary Separation (Paperback)
There are a great many very good psychological thrillers out there, but this is the only one that satisfactorily explains how a person becomes a psychotic killer. All the others just expect you to accept that a person is a psychotic killer. I've always been fascinated by psychotics but never understood how someone becomes psychotic. Now that I understand it, I'm going back to re-read all my favorites. All you other novelists beware, Rick Lacey has just raised the bar. If you don't really understand psychosis and the psychotic transformatic experience, find another career because readers won't just blindly accept your characters anymore.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex plotting and strong characterizations,
By
This review is from: Involuntary Separation (Paperback)
John McCall finds his boss murdered, still seated at his desk with a bullet through his head. The letters ISP have been carefully written in marker with the P around the bullet wound. ISP, involuntary separation seems to be a powerful motive, but with hundreds of past employees laid off and hundreds more potentially threatened, suspects abound. Oddly, the victim was not that heavily involved in the previous downsizing and would not have been involved in the next one either.John has already worked with the police on a previous case. Two years ago his wife Alicia and her best friend were brutally raped and murdered. While investigating Alicia's murder, police received so many calls from John's office phone late at night that they labeled him a workaholic with extreme dedication to Moon Oil. John is equally dedicated to ending corporate layoffs targeted to artificially inflate quarter reports. His dedication proves to be his downfall when Moon Oil uses his financial computer model to justify downsizing. With rumors flying regarding another downsizing, John intends to find a way to stop it. His long-term financial forecasting models predict dire consequences for the economy if corporations continue to downsize, but John has not as yet been able to predict short-term negative results. When a second board member is murdered and ISP is found be brutally slashed on his belly, every employee of Moon Oil, past and present, becomes suspect. Meanwhile, the chairman of the board assigns John to keep an eye on Beatrice Winter because she has "the eyes of a killer". Author Rick Lacey makes restitution for his own participation in a sever corporate downsizing at BP Oil by drawing upon his personal experiences as a Senior Financial Analyst in INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION. Lacey admits that INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION was written to start a national dialogue regarding corporate abuse in general and corporate downsizing in particular. The novel's psychotic killer seek revenge even while exposing the dangerous power plays that occur behind fancy boardroom doors. While the primary murder plot will hold readers riveted, it is the exposure of big business that will make readers indignant and angry with the abuses corporations perpetrate on their employees. Indeed, corporate abuses abound with an eye only for the next quarter: never mind the devastation to America's families and workforce, not to mention to the long term health of the company. Consequently, the novel succeeds with a powerful tale that affects every citizen of America. In addition, Lacey's sophisticated prose will appeal to literature lovers who enjoy a touch of metafiction, irony, and satire. Note: Some discerning readers will be ethically challenged by John's evolving personal relationship with his psychiatrist. INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION comes very highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
About murder in the upper management,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Involuntary Separation (Paperback)
Involuntary Separation: Corporate Downsizing Gone Fatally Wrong by Rick Lacey is a compelx and deftly written novel about murder in the upper management of an international oil company. Revenge, suicide, and one man's single-minded obsession to halt corporate downsizing make for an exciting and savage unfolding drama that will compell the reader's total attention from first page to last. Also highly recommended is Rick Lacey's early novel Cat Fever.
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