Gold

From Publishers Weekly This is an entertaining, though ultimately overblown, ride through high-stakes financial skulduggery in the gold-trading corridors of Switzerland, South Africa, New York, London and Moscow. At some point in the near future, Andrew Dumesnil, a reporter for a financial news network, gets a major scoop when one of his stringers reports that revolutionaries have incapacitated South African gold mines. Gold prices go through the roof as Pretoria confirms the report but, strangely, gold supplies seem to keep up with demand. As certain of Dumesnil's associates are found dead or unaccountably incommunicado, he begins to get the queasy feeling that he's been duped. He sets off to investigate firsthand. While his adventures on the gold trail are exciting, a too-neat resolution not only irks the reader but fails to fully resolve the mystery ("The worst had happened and life continued."). Delamaide, a reporter for a financial news network based in Paris segues between boardrooms and newsrooms with a knowledgeable air but, all too often, supposedly intelligent people make banal, breathlessly ingenuous conversation about the imminent collapse of the world's economy. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Can the international monetary system be as exciting a field for catastrophe as an inflamed terrorist plot? The answer is a resounding yes . The nastiness starts when a hard-driving editor for a small but respected financial news wire announces that South Africa's gold mines have been bombed. Warned by his intuition that all is not 14K, he attempts to verify the story and finds evidence of a major hoax . Meanwhile, as Mexico and Brazil careen towards default, the chair of the Federal Reserve takes desperate measures to preserve the American position. There is plenty of detail for those who enjoy the technical readouts of modern communication. Murder and romance round out the plot. In his first novel, Delamaide has reinvigorated the financial wizardry saga so popular in the Seventies . This superlative tale transforms the brass of greed and corruption into golden entertainment. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/89. - Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.