The Vulture Fund [Paperback]

It would seem that Stephen Frey is attempting to become the John Grisham of Wall Street. His knowledge of the arcane world of the stock market and high finance is encyclopedic, and he's really quite adequate at coming up with clever plots and conspiracies. Furthermore, taking another lead from Grisham, his characters are the same cliched stock personages who inahbit Grisham's world. So Frey justifiably lays claim to the title of Grisham's financial counterpart. But that' isn't neccesarily something I'd want a thriller writer to be. Frey's second book, The Vulture Fund, is an entertaining read, and when it was over I thought I'd learned something about how the financial world operates. Frey doesn't stop at the nuts and bolts of money management and investing, though; he also explores the upper-class snobbery that plagues the financial community by making his hero, whiz kid Mace McLain, be the product of a Minnesota orphanage rather than the Eastern Establishment. Also, he creates an ingenious main conspiracy by having a presidential candidate finance his campaign by masterminding what could be the worst terrorist incident in history. But his research on things not related to finance is revolting. Would guards at a nuclear facility really carry outdated .30-caliber rifles? Why is the .44 Magnum the weapon of choice amongst assassins in Frey's world, when most other thriller writers would tell you that professional killers prefer smaller automatic weapons? When was the last time you saw a CIA director run for President against the Commander-in-Chief who supposedly appointed him? Sure, George Bush became President, but it was a decade after he'd been CIA chief. Could a President hand over all the nation's counterterrorism operations to the CIA? Without angering the FBI, the Secret Service, the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, and the Marines? And while I'm beating the subject of the Chief Executive dead, what's the deal with President Bob Whitman? In Frey's last book, The Takeover, (skip this section if you've not read it), Whitman was the Republican Governor of Connecticut who defeated President Buford J. Warren, Democrat of Alabama, for reelection, after a group of Wall Street insiders artfully framed him for insider trading. Now, Whitman's a Democrat who's been in office for seven years. I could believe that Vulture Fund is set two presidential terms after Takeover, but why did President Whitman switch parties? Or is Frey just being lazy? And finally, who in the world has a name like Slade Connor, Mace's best friend who is the CIA's top agent (and who's mission briefings are an embarrasingly researched ripoff of James Bond)? As a final debit, the dialogue is some of the worst since recent Robert Ludlum. The Vulture Fund has enough of a clever plot and inside information to keep you turning pages. But the research, or considerable lack thereof, is enough to make you scream in pain.

Like " The Firm " this is an excellent book that I could really get into, being from a Financial background I found the detail was not too overloaded,and the hero was a life-like "James Bond" who you could not help but admire.
The author has a Grisham/Cornwall style with an excellent Christie style twist at the end.

The Takeover was a brilliant page turner and I really expected a lot from the Vulture Fund.It does have its moments but all in all it is worth the money especially for a long haul flight.

It touches on a lot of different subjects - not just finance - so its a fun read! It may be slow at spots, but hang in there for some cool action.