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Tony Casella #3
Foreign Exchange
"Acerbic . . . Original . . . Beinhart writes with considerable panache." The Philadelphia Inquirer
A Tony Cassella Mystery by the author of "You Get What You Pay For."
Tony Cassella is tired of being a private eye. He has a new baby. Soon he may even have a wife. And he's also in trouble with the IRS. So he's traded his trench coat for a quiet but profitable laundromat in the Austrian Alps.
But it's not so easy to retire. When the CIA comes calling, they want more than their shirts done. They want him to find a missing computer disc lost in an avalanche that killed a Japanese playboy and an American girl. A Japanese conglomerate soon appears on the scene with questions of their own. And the girl's mother is not far behind. Everybody wants Tony's help. Everybody, that is, except a few out-of-work East German spies. They want him dead . . .
From the Paperback edition.
A Tony Cassella Mystery by the author of "You Get What You Pay For."
Tony Cassella is tired of being a private eye. He has a new baby. Soon he may even have a wife. And he's also in trouble with the IRS. So he's traded his trench coat for a quiet but profitable laundromat in the Austrian Alps.
But it's not so easy to retire. When the CIA comes calling, they want more than their shirts done. They want him to find a missing computer disc lost in an avalanche that killed a Japanese playboy and an American girl. A Japanese conglomerate soon appears on the scene with questions of their own. And the girl's mother is not far behind. Everybody wants Tony's help. Everybody, that is, except a few out-of-work East German spies. They want him dead . . .
From the Paperback edition.
291 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 1991
6 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Larry Beinhart
40 books59 followersLarry Beinhart is an Edgar Award-winning author whose American Hero became the movie Wag the Dog."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 20, 2020
Published in 1991,this was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.It is the third instalment of the Tony Casella series.
Casella is a private investigator,in trouble with the IRS.He has found a safe place to hide in the Austrian Alps.But then an American girl and a Japanese man are killed in an avalanche.
The mother of the girl,a Japanese conglomerate and the CIA all want him to get involved and find a computer disc that disappeared with the Japanese man.Along the way,he would also encounter Eastern bloc spies.
It has a picturesque setting and plenty of commentary on world affairs of the time.It is similar to Michael Crichton's Rising Sun,in its anti-Japan rhetoric.At the time the Japanese were busy acquiring lots of assets in the US.
As a thriller,it isn't quite top-notch.There is plenty of crude sexual content.The dialogue is acerbic and sometimes funny.
A rather uneven book,but it's still good fun.
Casella is a private investigator,in trouble with the IRS.He has found a safe place to hide in the Austrian Alps.But then an American girl and a Japanese man are killed in an avalanche.
The mother of the girl,a Japanese conglomerate and the CIA all want him to get involved and find a computer disc that disappeared with the Japanese man.Along the way,he would also encounter Eastern bloc spies.
It has a picturesque setting and plenty of commentary on world affairs of the time.It is similar to Michael Crichton's Rising Sun,in its anti-Japan rhetoric.At the time the Japanese were busy acquiring lots of assets in the US.
As a thriller,it isn't quite top-notch.There is plenty of crude sexual content.The dialogue is acerbic and sometimes funny.
A rather uneven book,but it's still good fun.
December 7, 2012
Once again I stepped into a series from the wrong end. “Foreign Exchange” is the third (and I’m guessing last) book about one-time private eye Anthony Cassella. Although connected to the previous critically acclaimed and award-winning books, this one does pretty well as a standalone novel. There is only one really significant thread that relates back to the earlier books (and I’ll know about that when I read them.)
The book is fast-paced and full of locations, characters, and misdirection. The theme of “foreign exchange” is taken to its extreme in that monetary rates, international secrets, and espionage are all aspects of that simple phrase. I really don’t want to give away much since I think it is such an undervalued book (as its two predecessors were) that I hope you will dig up a copy and read it for yourself.
(But don’t feel too bad for the author. His next book was “American Hero” which I recently read & reviewed. It was very successful and turned into the movie, “Wag the Dog” an A-list film that I have not yet seen.)
Our protagonist is a wise-cracking, smart aleck who would rather mind his own business and enjoy his girlfriend and their newly born daughter. But, such is not his fate as said girlfriend coerces him into investigating the apparently accidental death of a young American girl and her older, Japanese lover. What begins simply enough turns our wannabe-ski-bum into a double (maybe triple, it depends on how you count) agent.
Because it’s the EU and post-fall-of-the Soviet Union, there are border crossing a-plenty as he (often with the extended family in tow) tracks down clues. I can’t vouch for the descriptions of locations in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, but I can say that the passages about Japan, Japanese businesses and culture are pretty on-target. I can also confirm that his details about the Hungarian language are correct. (I’m not Hungarian, I just happen to know these facts.)
I plan on reading the previous two novels whenever I can look over the apex of Mount TBR, but he has also written a nice non-fiction book: “How to Write a Mystery” that got good reviews (as did his non-fiction political “Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin”.) I also read and reviewed “The Librarian” a couple of years ago (I saw it in the library, of course). So far I have not found a single book of his that has disappointed.
“Foreign Exchange” comes in at “3.25” which means I will only post “3” stars.
The author incorporates humor into everything he writes. In this novel, I was very amused by the hero's choice of alias and the resulting business venture's name.
The book is fast-paced and full of locations, characters, and misdirection. The theme of “foreign exchange” is taken to its extreme in that monetary rates, international secrets, and espionage are all aspects of that simple phrase. I really don’t want to give away much since I think it is such an undervalued book (as its two predecessors were) that I hope you will dig up a copy and read it for yourself.
(But don’t feel too bad for the author. His next book was “American Hero” which I recently read & reviewed. It was very successful and turned into the movie, “Wag the Dog” an A-list film that I have not yet seen.)
Our protagonist is a wise-cracking, smart aleck who would rather mind his own business and enjoy his girlfriend and their newly born daughter. But, such is not his fate as said girlfriend coerces him into investigating the apparently accidental death of a young American girl and her older, Japanese lover. What begins simply enough turns our wannabe-ski-bum into a double (maybe triple, it depends on how you count) agent.
Because it’s the EU and post-fall-of-the Soviet Union, there are border crossing a-plenty as he (often with the extended family in tow) tracks down clues. I can’t vouch for the descriptions of locations in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, but I can say that the passages about Japan, Japanese businesses and culture are pretty on-target. I can also confirm that his details about the Hungarian language are correct. (I’m not Hungarian, I just happen to know these facts.)
I plan on reading the previous two novels whenever I can look over the apex of Mount TBR, but he has also written a nice non-fiction book: “How to Write a Mystery” that got good reviews (as did his non-fiction political “Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin”.) I also read and reviewed “The Librarian” a couple of years ago (I saw it in the library, of course). So far I have not found a single book of his that has disappointed.
“Foreign Exchange” comes in at “3.25” which means I will only post “3” stars.
The author incorporates humor into everything he writes. In this novel, I was very amused by the hero's choice of alias and the resulting business venture's name.
May 8, 2021
Great fun! Interesting and convoluted plot. Well drawn characters. Fantastic and well described locations.
April 16, 2017
Possibly the best Tony Cassella mystery, because of the humorous International commentary and the impossible situations Tony gets in and out of.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews