Leverage by Amran Gowani

 Full Disclosure: I know next to nothing about the world of high finance. What they do. How they do it. What's legal or illegal or what's a bit of both. It's all a mystery to me. 

The setting is Prism, a high flying west coast-based hedge fund (see full disclosure. A 'hedge fund' boggles my pea brain). Within  Prism are a number of themed funds (like real estate, IT, etc.) one of which is run by an up and coming star Ali Jafar ('Al' or any number of identity politic nicknames). The boss is Paul Kingsley, a financial genius, master manipulator, and a world class bully. His #2 is his son Brad who is also a bully with an ultimate goal of overthrowing dear old dad and take Prism for himself. 

Seems like each investment Al makes turns to gold and that means more money for Prism and for Kingsley. That's his history. Crack researcher and adept of finding opportunities others have missed. Until one of his investments tanks resulting in a $300 million loss for Prism. Called on the carpet by Kingsley, Al is given an ultimatum. Get back to doing what he does best and earn back the lost $300M . . . within 3 months or Paul will let it leak to regulators that some of Prisms shady dealings can be traced directly back to Al. Apparently the crimes would be sufficient to put Al away for decades. Think Bernie Madoff level of treachery. 

So now Al has to call in a few chips, accept aid from unknown sources, keep his ear to the ground, digdigdig, get into bed with other ne'er to wells in an attempt to score returns sufficient enough to satisfy Paul, keep his own hair, not attract the attention of federal regulators or get himself killed in the process. All within 3 months. 

Guessing this book would be liked by fans of Succession (of which I may be one of the few). And the give and take of money and the various forms of graft are above my head. Way above my head. So while the story is fast-paced, contains a bunch of "Karen" and "Todd" characters, (and that Al has a bit of a self-gratification habit), readers like me who just don't 'get' finance at this level, are probably not the target audience. On one level, the story was downright Shakespearean with the envious son trying to overthrow the tyrant father by using various underlings to achieve his goals. 

I do appreciate Atria books for the advance copy. I got this copy in early/mid summer and just now getting around to reading it so I hope the grammatical slips common to content development get corrected in the commercial version that is set for publication 19 AUG 2025. 

 

East Coast Don