The Set-Up [Hardcover]

Paul Emil Erdman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

Imprisoned unexpectedly by the Swiss police, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board Charlie Black and his wife agree to take part in an elaborate escape scheme, unwittingly launching the couple into the midst of those who had framed him.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A man framed for financial fraud is rescued from prison by the same group responsible for his wrongful conviction. From the author of Zero Coupon (Forge,
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Current business headlines--the volatile derivative market, secret Swiss bank accounts, etc.--animate Erdman's latest financial thriller. The last thing Charles Black expects, when he lands in Basel to represent the U.S. at the monthly meeting of national bank leaders at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), is arrest by the Swiss police. Recently resigned after four years at the helm of the Federal Reserve Board, Black is a temporary special envoy to the BIS--until its Swiss and British delegates charge him with misuse of high office and a half-billion-dollar fraud, and the Basel prosecutor sends him to a fifteenth-century jail. Erdman's title gives the game away: someone really was speculating on interest and exchange rates using confidential BIS information. Black and his financially savvy wife encounter both venal and vicious adversaries as they strive to clear his name. Although most readers will never trade a Eurobond future, many seem to appreciate Erdman's fast-paced tales of the movers and shakers who do. Mary Carroll

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312151101
• ISBN-13: 978-0312151102
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,343,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Well Researched Book!, June 9, 2000

By 

Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Set-Up (Mass Market Paperback)

Once again Paul Erdman displays a vast knowledge of the world of money. A man who has headed the Federal Reserve Bank is set up by a shifty money man who is laundering money for a shady character from Corsica. The former banker is jailed for a crime he din not commit. Thanks to his wife and her will to not give up he finally gains his freedom. The shifty money man and his partner are killed by the shadowy character from Corsica. Paul Erdman has the ability to write financial books and make them very readable. This book is a good example of this. Buy it. You will not be dissapointed.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the best financial thriller writer out there, September 5, 2003

By 

Robert G. Fontana (Matthews, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Set-Up (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm still on my quest for a Grisham-like financial thriller, and Erdman is the best I've read in that genre so far, though it's not quite Grisham. I've read several other authors in this genre including Stephen Frey, Michael Ridpath, among others, and Erdman is the best of the group. I just wish he had more fiction work out there. I found this book to be a fast-paced, easy read that I completed in 2 days. I'd highly recommend it.

P.S. I'd also recommend checking out Erdman's book Zero Coupon; it dates back to the 1970's, but it's still among the best out there.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Topnotch financial thriller that could've been even better.., May 7, 2003

By 

Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Set-Up (Mass Market Paperback)

Charles Black, a former investment banker and a tough-nut chairman of the Fed quits his job in a struggle with the White House over rising interest rates. But he's persuaded to stay on for a while as a special envoy to represent the Fed at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based institution that serves as the industrialized world's clearinghouse for payments and monetary information.

So imagine Black's rude surprise when he arrives in Basel, Switzerland for one of the BIS's regular monthly meetings. Instead of the warm welcome he had been receiving for the past four years as a Fed chief, he is arrested, jailed, and charged with using his exclusive knowledge of U.S. interest-rate moves to mastermind the most audacious insider-trading scheme ever.

Intrigued yet?

As the conspiracy begins to unfold, Black finds himself no more than a fall guy for a shadowy Sardinian financier, a conniving Swiss lawyer with a desk full of secret bank accounts, and the real inside trader--a corrupt president of the Swiss National Bank. In this mix of characters lies the potential for a Hitchcockian drama of a victim mixing it up with his tormentors as he tries to clear his name. The Set-Up journeys from San Francisco and Washington to Switzerland, Sardinia, and the wilds of Alaska, where the plot against Black falls apart.

On the good side, Erdman keeps things moving with his descriptions of shady Swiss dealings, and prison life. Big Swiss heads come off as men of impeccable social standing but a flexible moral character. That's an all-too-common shortcoming among the Swiss big-money set that Erdman seems to have studied closely during his life as a doctoral student and banker in Basel.

But this is also my minor grouse with the book that is supposed to be more of a thriller than a treatise on global finance. Expect a fair bit of digressions into the minutiae of international banking including an introduction to the innards of derivatives markets. Which was great for me personally, but these are in fact slightly piquing in terms of the novel's flow.

Nonetheless this is all worth the ride if you are in the market for a financially inclined thriller. Recommended.