Blown

Biting satire and criminal mischief abound in Mark Haskell Smith’s new novel that follows a Wall Street trader who disappears—with millions in stolen cash—and the madcap team of investigators on his trail in the Cayman Islands in this hot, hilarious case of offshore banking gone awry

Hailed as “the slightly more well-adjusted offspring of Hunter S. Thompson and James Ellroy” (Los Angeles Times), Mark Haskell Smith returns with a wildly entertaining satire of corporate greed, sexual desire, and crime in the global financial services industry.

Bryan LeBlanc worked his way up into a plum position on Wall Street as the boy genius of the foreign exchange desk. Surrounded by acolytes of the free market, the true believers, the U.S. Marines of capitalism—“the few, the proud, the completely full of themselves”—Bryan soon realizes that being honest at a dishonest job is not the path to success. He decides to give Wall Street a taste of its own medicine and hatches an intricate plan to disappear permanently with just enough misappropriated money—and sailing classes—to spend his golden years cruising the Caribbean.

Bryan quickly learns that being a criminal, even a really smart one, is more complicated than he thought. He finds himself on the run in the Cayman Islands, wanted for murder. On his trail is an irresponsible team of investigators sent by his Wall Street firm, hellbent on reclaiming the millions before their clients notice its missing: his boss, Seo-yun Kim, who’s committed to not only clearing her name but escaping her suffocating fiancé and their pending nuptials; the investment bank’s collections agent, Neal Nathanson, depressed over a recent break-up with his boyfriend; and an ex-cop from Curaçao, Piet Room, who has traded in his badge for spouse spying as a private investigator. Their efforts are complicated by an Australian sailor begrudgingly circumnavigating the globe to fundraise for breast cancer awareness.

Wickedly funny, ribald, and sharp-eyed, BLOWN starts as a simple case of embezzlement and explodes into a fatal high-stakes gamble for money and the pursuit of happiness.