Economic hitman

by Mike Kimel

Cross posted at the Presimetrics blog.

I guess when you’re a very not famous (co-)author like yours truly, people start contacting you with information about their books. I got an e-mail today from another currently very not famous author plugging his book, and I found it to be an interesting concept.

The book is called The Economics of Ego Surplus by Paul McDonnold, and it is a “novel of economic terrorism.” This website allows you to read the first 54 pages of the novel. I personally read about ten or so, and decided to order the rest of the book. (Note – I don’t know Paul McDonnold, never heard of him before he sent me an e-mail, and am getting nothing out of this. He did want to send me, maven that I am, a free copy of the book but I am sending him a check.) FWIW, its not so polished that it doesn’t come across as a first novel, but on the other hand, it smoothly blends in some economics/finance with a Dan Brown-style conspiracy. Put another way – it reads like the bestseller I picked up at the airport a couple of weeks ago before getting on a plane with the added benefit of dealing with a field I find interesting. Put yet another way, it reads like books by Paul Erdman, who I used to read for fun back in college and grad school. For those of us who like our economics/finance, and enjoy the occasional (for me, time is a major constraint these days, and thus we’re mostly talking when I travel) thriller its nice to see another example of the two combined.

Can you think of other examples from this genre?