"money to burn" by James Grippando

Yesterday I bought the latest James Grippando mystery novel, “Money to Burn”. What can I say? It’s fabulous.

The book opens with Michael Canella, a Wall Street bigwig, and his girlfriend of four months, Ivy Layton, sailing on the company yacht with a group of high achievers from the investment firm Saxton Silvers. Bored of bland Wall Street wives, Ivy convinces Michael to leave and charter a boat for just the two of them. They sail, sunbathe, drink, make love and suddenly decide to get married. Too much wine is produced and when Michael wakes up early the next morning with a deadly hangover, Ivy is gone and she is presumed dead.

Fast forward four years to Michael’s 35th birthday. He’s on his way to another awards dinner and he’s not too happy. As he walks into the hotel lobby, two men in trench coats approach him, show their FBI badges, and tell Michael that he needs to come with them. It’s all an elaborate ruse created by Michael’s second wife, Mallory, who has planned a surprise party for his birthday. The party is a success and later, in his hotel room, while waiting for his wife to get ready for bed, and some hot sex, Michal checks her bank balances and finds… a balance from zero. Someone has stolen his identity and emptied his accounts. The only clue to him is a new email message: Just as planned, xoxo.

If you think things can’t get any worse, just wait. Mallory is outraged at the loss of all “her” money from her, even though she has done nothing but spend what Michael earned. She then flies into a rage and accuses Michael of still being in love with his first wife, Ivy. Michael tries to reassure Mallory that it’s not true, but deep down he knows he’s still in love with Ivy. He never really accepted her death and feels that somehow, somewhere, she is still alive. But right now, he has a bigger problem. He contacts his mentor at Saxton Silvers and, to his horror, discovers that someone has started shorting all of Saxton’s stock. Soon he’s accused of insider trading, no one will believe his identity was stolen, Mallory wants a divorce, and everyone on Wall Street hates him.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do! Michael is on the run, accused of murder. As he tries to find out what happened to his life and elude the police and the FBI, he realizes that someone is trying to kill him. There are so many plot twists that it’s hard to keep up and the ending will take your breath away. Grippando explains in very simple language what happened to cause the stock market to crash and now I understand more about what happened than ever before. I won’t tell you more about the plot because I don’t want to spoil the surprises of this book. Just go out and buy a copy of “Money to Burn.” You will not regret. Grippando is an excellent writer with a wicked little sense of humor that I love. I can’t wait for the next mystery about him to come out.