Wall Street Noir

by Stephen Rhodes

This anthology explores the dark side of finance from Manhattan to Bangkok and Tel Aviv, featuring new stories by Jim Fusilli, Lauren Sanders and more.   Wall Street often looks like a gleaming world of high-end professionalism where decisions to buy or sell are guided by expertise, formulas and dispassionate strategy. And sure, that’s one version of Wall Street. Let’s call it the CNBC edition. But this book is about another place, just beneath that shiny a place where fear and greed have always held sway. Think WorldCom or Tyco; think Enron. Think Gordon Gekko.  Wall Street Noir illuminates a place whose boundaries have spread well beyond Trinity Church and the East River. In today’s global economy, Wall Street is a borderless, virtual city encompassing Midtown Manhattan, Main Street, U.S.A., the maquilas of Honduras, the office towers of Shanghai, and the brothels of Bangkok. It’s a shadowy metropolis, as the stories in this exciting collection reveal, and one that’s far more Jim Thompson than Warren Buffet.  Wall Street Noir includes brand-new stories by John Burdett, Henry Blodget, Peter Blauner, Jason Starr, Megan Abbott, Reed Farrel Coleman, Stephen Rhodes, Twist Phelan, Tim Broderick, Jim Fusilli, David Noonan, Richard Aleas, Lawrence Light, James Hime, Mark Haskell Smith, Peter Spiegelman, and Lauren Sanders.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Mystery, New York, Noir, Crime

375 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2007

Reviews

[globulon · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my life I have almost nothing to do with Wall St. or business outside of reading about it, but I am interested in financial criminals, particularly things about rogue traders etc. I also started a crime story about a wall st. trader that had stalled out and thought reading this might help. So I definitely feel I was prepared to like this.

Unfortunately, the writing is pretty bad throughout this book.
Hime's "Rough Justice"
Spiegelman's "Five Days at the Sunset"
Burdett's "The Enlightenment of Magnus McKay"
Sander's "Everything I'm Not"
(In order of appearance)
were the best of the lot. These were reasonable stories. The others were often non-sensical (Blodget's "Bonus Season"), cliched (Rhodes' "At the Top of His Game"), or pointless (Noonan's "Town Car", Smith's "The Day Trader in the Trunk of Cleto's Car", Starr's "The Basher").

Fusilli and Abbott had interesting ideas to look at historical situations. Unfortunately, neither one was executed well at all. The first was needlessly complex in it's telling so it just didn't evoke much. Abbott's story revolves around a conversation of a man who has just come up with an idea for an "unfixable" lottery game with his lady love. Unfortunately, again, it just seems to trade in the usual stereotypes of the hardworking woman wooed by the smooth-spoken rogue who is appealing because he believes his own rhetoric. It failed to really bring anything to the specific situation to make it interesting. It also cuts out after accomplishing almost nothing and delivers a short lecture on the historical personage involved.

Phelan's "A Trader's Lot" is again an overused idea of a sad sack who risks it all, with some twists to the plot that just don't bring much excitement.

Broderick's "Feeding Frenzy" was an odd little comic about an office intrigue with a woman lying dead on a conference room table. Neither well drawn nor well written.

Aleas' "The Quant" wasn't horribly written but the basic idea was completely unbelievable (that a firm would murder a worker's wife in order to have a chance at retaining the worker). And the ending conversation was obvious and overused, along the lines of "I calculated the probabilities." "Well you didn't count on this!"

Light's "Make Me Rich" Slightly better than the bottom rung here, but the idea is again hackneyed. Sad sack hanger-on ends up turning against arrogant disdainful associate.

Blauner's "The Consultant" an example of men doing a bad job writing women and women's situations.

Coleman's "Due Diligence" combines the problems of "The Quant" and "The Consultant". It's a bad job writing about a woman combined with a very unbelievable main idea.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excluding what I found to be a couple of real dogs, this is a delightfully strong collection of short stories. I've read several of these collections and this is one of the more entertaining.

[Vinod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome collection of stories..

[Yuri Yulaev · Rating 4 out of 5]

decent compilation of stories, some of which are fantastic!

[Robert P. Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part One Downtown
1. Broad Street. Well done story of someone caught up in a race that can't be won.
2. A Trader's Lot. The best story in the collection. Great description of life on a trading floor and such a well done ending.
3. A cartoon that didn't work for me
4. A Terrorizing Demonstration. Okay but quite predictable
5. Town Car. A great short story that leaves many details unexplained but such a wonderful story of someone facing random violence who believes he can keep in control of things.

Part Two Uptown
1. The Quant. Excellent story about what a trader is willing to do to keep a valued employee. Great use of probability values in moving the plot forward.
2. Make Me Rich. Excellent story about insider trading, how one person is exploited, and an ending that was unexpected
3. Rough Justice. A great short story, with a great plot, great characters and a wonderful ending.
4. The Consultant. A wonderful story about someone who undermines the person she has been hired to be a consultant for.

Part Three
1. The Day Trader. A masterful story about someone who gets caught up in greed with a perfect ending.
2. Five Days at the Sunset. A good story but an ending that was a bit too forced.
3. Today We Hit. Okay but an ending that seemed rushed and tried to wrap up things that would have made more sense in a longer story.
4. The Basher. A masterpiece. A great story of revenge and how someone can talk himself into believing that what he is doing is justified.

Part Four
1. The Enlightenment of Magnus McKay. A great story with such a wonderful cast of characters and an ending that is so well done.
2. Bonus Season. An excellent story with a surprising and well done ending.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good stories.

[Mely]

Read the Megan Abbott story. Janitor figures out the numbers game, makes it big in Harlem. Great on mood and atmosphere; the probability numbers confused me, but they always do.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Prison Noir, the absolute best of the series.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good bunch of noir fiction short stories. Real noir. I enjoyed it and recommend it. I’m also going to check out the various authors.

[Anandh Sundar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Initial stories were good but the latter half stories suck big time. If I could rate the book in parts, I would give 5 to the initial half and 1 to the 2nd half(which unfortunately outweights the first half)

[Tuxlie]

Brand-new stories by: John Burdett, Peter Blauner, Charles Ardai, Henry Blodget, Twist Phelan, Larry Light, James Hime, Jason Starr, Lauren Sanders, Tim Broderick, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jim Fusilli, Mark Haskell Smith, and more.

[Pam]

rec from pbs

[Mark Rathaus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not noir and not entertaining. Apparently, it's impossible to write a Wall Street mystery with characters of even marginal interest.