Rich Man's Blood [Hardcover]

John C. Boland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

Financial machinations leading to violence and greed involve corporate financial advisor Richard Welles in a complex web when he decides to investigate a financially troubled company that he had personally advised.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Two separate sections of narrative fail to gel in this intriguing yet imperfect work by the author of Easy Money . Yet a resultant whole emerges as quite readable, benefiting from lean prose that allows familial warfare to simmer gently beneath the surface. If former Barrons' editor Boland chose to jettison the mystery trappings he only half-heartedly pursues, his writing style and his subplots packed with characters defined and emotionally disabled by corporate life would stand comparison with Ward Just and other chroniclers of the American businessman. Richard Welles works for the Baltimore investment firm founded by his autocratic father, who, if his waning influence remains resolute, will leave it all to Richard's wastrel older brother. The firm's tenuous position isn't helped by the floundering fortunes of Richard's client Stu Harris, whose Louisiana shipping company has purchased a fleet of vessels from a con man holding no clear title. The employee responsible for the bogus sale is murdered, at which point the author shifts gears by having Richard return to Baltimore in time to witness a hostile takeover of his father's company. The reader must assume events in Louisiana and Maryland are somehow linked, but plot connections are threadbare, and over-long explanations of financial matters, while often necessary, slow the narrative. Boland does far better when he explores Richard's inner workings; he excells in rendering epiphanies and, more impressively, in the painstaking creation of a sympathetic character from a dense tangle of inner conflicts.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

When a slick-talking Texan's financial shenanigans lead Stu Harris's New Orleans marine company to the brink of bankruptcy, young Richard Welles--Harris's financial advisor at venerable Ambrose and Welles, investment bankers--steps in and, with FBI help, extricates Stu from Charlie Fentress's scheme, which included blackmail, kidnapping, and strong-arm tactics. Months later, when Ambrose and Welles itself is about to be drained of its assets by wealthy Gibson Island newcomer Simon Povane and his gorgeous daughter Lauren, Richard thinks he recognizes a pattern and attempts to dismantle a financial hustle that spreads from Baltimore to London to Australia--but not without incurring more bad feeling between himself and his father and older brother, who have, unknowingly, ushered the family firm toward ruin. The FBI, Stu Harris, and shipboard derring-do will come into play before the bad guys (and girl) succumb. Boland, who thinks like Paul Erdman and writes like Dick Francis, creates a winsome hero in Welles--and again (after Easy Money, 1991) scores big with this tale of complicated money maneuvering and family strife. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312093713
• ISBN-13: 978-0312093716
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,584,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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LAST ISLAND SOUTH (Perfect Crime, September 2009)

Novice sleuth Meggie Trevor is so broke she'll take on any client who pays cash in this Key West thriller. Her CIA agent father is missing on the Gulf of Mexico. So is a yacht loaded with weapons. Too bad her client hasn't told her everything he knows: they both might live longer.

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Key West sleuth Meggie Trevor is back, ashamed she's providing security for the guy who wants to be Porn King of the Keys. Mixing it up with arts patrons, amateur sex stars, and a shotgun-toting chef, she's not even sure of her friends in a town that's never been scruffier, or more dangerous.

30 YEARS IN THE PULPS (Perfect Crime, September 2009)

Brings together more than a score of the Shamus-nominated author's novelettes and short stories from the pages of Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock's mystery magazines, including the International Thriller Writers 2009 "Best Short Story" finalist, "Last Island South."


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Meggie Trevor hires on to track down a missing boater, whose wife has a lot to gain if he's dead.


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Besides writing novels and short stories, JOHN C. BOLAND has worked as a Senior Editor of Barron's Financial Weekly, contributed often to the Sunday New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and run a profitable hedge fund. He is the author of what Market Logic called "the best book ever written on insider trading"--Wall Street's Insiders (Morrow, 1985).

His story "Last Island South," from Ellery Queen's, gained two nominations for 2009 "Best Short Story": it was chosen as a finalist by the International Thriller Writers Association, and nominated for a Shamus by the Private Eye Writers.

His previous novels, from St. Martin's Press and Pocket Books, were praised as "sparkling" (Publishers Weekly), "great fun" (USA Today), "tightly plotted" (Washington Times), "fast-paced" (Baltimore Sun), and "trenchant, sly--and cerebral fun throughout" (Kirkus).

His web site is www.JohnCBoland.com.