Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street

In Offit’s uneven debut, middle-class Warren Hament attends Columbia Business School in 1984, then lands a plum job as a bond trader at the fictional Weldon Brothers in Manhattan. When bad things start happening to people he’s close to—a fellow M.B.A. student goes into a coma, another dies after a skiing accident, and a high-ranking colleague is murdered—Hament is much too savvy to dismiss these events as purely coincidental. The author’s real-life experience on the Street makes Hament’s rapid ascent credible, and Offit is good at building suspense on the trading floor of Weldon and in the boardrooms of clients, providing a first-hand glimpse at just how sleazy and self-interested Wall Street can be: “It was always, and only, about money. Just business. Nothing personal.” Wooden dialogue and purple sex scenes are troublesome, but the main problem is that the financial excesses of the 1980s feel like ancient history. (Feb.)