Top Producer

by: Norb Vonnegut

Published by: Minotaur Books

Reviewed by Mark Owen

Norb Vonnegut’s Top Producer lays waste to Wall Street…in a good way. Who else but a former insider could write a realistic fictional accounting of how high-flying bankers and brokers fleece people of their hard-earned money?

Grover O’Rourke is a top producer in his firm. He has a few handfuls of clients and he does a good, honest job of managing their money. The better he does, the more he’s paid–and left alone. This is precisely the recipe that motivates excessive greed, but not in Grover.

The same can’t be said for his best friend and mentor Charlie Kelemen, who manages more money than Grover, but spends seemingly unlimited cash on lavish parties and expensive jewelry for his young wife. Then Charlie is murdered, and the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet like jelly beans from a broken jar. The investors, who in the past were happy with a piece of paper showing increasing account balances, can’t seem to get any additional information on their accounts. Even Charlie’s wife is left with only $600 in her checking account, but readers won’t feel sorry for her in the end. Grover solves the mystery, exposes Charlie’s Ponzi scheme, and saves his own hide.

Some readers might have minor trouble with financial device street-speak, which is scattered throughout the book. Get ready for short selling, call-and-put options, SEC 13(d) forms, and marking the close of a stock, the latter term defining a specific type of stock manipulation. But Vonnegut does a good job explaining all these phrases, and they help keep the book on the technical edge of reality.

Charlie Kelemen may not be Bernie Madoff, but he’s surely a close cousin, and Vonnegut’s telling of the tale makes for a fast, entertaining read.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

Author’s Web site: http://www.NorbVonnegut.com