Customer Reviews

The Velocity of Money: A Novel of Wall Street

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you like Wall Street and financial intrigue, you will love this book. The real beauty of it, however, is that you don't need to be a stock broker or lawyer to follow the story. Thrills galore!

The villain is modeled on Marc Rich; coincidentally I read it and started corresponding with the author just a week before Clinton pardoned Rich. A great anthropological study of the trading subsculture at the end of the 20th century. Very good, and especially great if you're an in-house counsel at a major house who works with derivatives.

This book is enough to make even the most risk-taking, microcap, emerging-markets, junk-debt investor stuff his cash under the mattress. An all-too-plausible scheme to crash the market by program-trading and then collecting the proceeds with a massive option bet. The story is propelled by the usual cloke-and-dagger, regular-guy-hero-smells-a-rat narrative. But it moves along briskly and never gets sufficiently stupid to distract you from the financial machinations that are the guts of the plot. Significantly more intelligent than the average thriller.

Excellent book for anyone interested in making money with stocks. It really makes you think. I've never been to Wall Street, but after reading this book I feel like I was there. Couldn't put it down!

The story makes great reading for technophobes, pursuing the idea that a shady team of master criminals could sway the stock markets in their favour via computer systems. The book is well paced but the conclusion is so obvious that the tension fails to build. The book, like so many of Crichton's recent offerings, reads more like a script than a book. Nonetheless, good beack/travel material.

This book is a wonderful read from beginning to end...enjoyed it immensely.

Rick Hansen was 28 and reporting for his new job in the legal, regulatory & compliance department at the global banking firm of Wolcott, Fulbright & Company. The U.S. DJIA seemed head towards 10,000. Of course, keep in mind this book was originally published in 1997. Hansen had no idea that his predecessor, Tom Bingham, in the position seemed to have committed suicide by jumping from his balcony. Or that the man's paralegal soon was to die due to an accident under mysterious circumstances. As Hansen assimilates himself to his job he begins to pick up clues that all may not have been as it seemed with his deceased predecessor.In particular he found a handwritten note by Bingham that accurately predicted the range of a one day market meltdown of more than 600 points. The note was written two months before the fact and prior to his demise. Little did anyone know that this was a dry run by a group called The Contrarians who planned on the main event where the market would lose half it's value in a day. That was to be achieved thru use of powerful computers,super sophisticated computer programs,a powerful insider at a top firm and bogus trades thru shell companies. The book is dedicated to Hansen's figuring out the clues and making key moves to unravel the plot. This was an interesting good read. But, I think it's length of 500 pages probably could have been edited down a bit without losing the essence of the plot.

It's nice to read a book written by someone who knows what they're talking about. Enjoyed this book from beginning to end. It never lagged anywhere. Action packed and full of thrills.

The thing I liked most about this book is that it was hard to put down and I couldn't wait to get back to it. It held my interest from the first to the last page. Your character Rick rang so real to me I thought I was reading about my son. All of us in the market fear your plot. Great book. I'm a fan now. By the way, Fern Michaels is the one who recommended I read this book. Sharon Yohey

This is a super novel! Stock market junkies like me need more fiction like this. This shows the contemporary way to destroy "the Street": sabotage the computers. It is very suspenseful and you keep asking yourself: Could it be this easy? A frightening thought, especially with Y2K looming over us. I enjoyed this immensely and suggest it to patrons at the library where I work all the time--it has been a big hit. Must run and check the money under my mattress.