Review originally written for Spruce Grove Public Library and published in The Spruce Grove Examiner, December 7, 2012

Money to Burn by James Grippando, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2010, ISBN 978-0-06-155630-2, Reviewed by R.D. Girvan

When successful Wall Street banker Michael Cantella turns thirty-five years old, he is on top of the World. Celebrating at a deluxe birthday bash thrown by his beautiful wife at a five-star hotel overlooking Central Park, Michael feels pretty darn lucky. Unfortunately, someone is making sure that his luck is about to change.

The first inkling that all is not right in Paradise comes when he accesses his investment portfolio on line and discovers the money is all gone. Checking every other account, he finds the same shocking news: zero balance. He has been wiped out financially. The next clue is an odd email that reads: Just as planned. Xo xo.

That plan seems to involve more than Michael’s mere financial ruin; with each passing day, the stakes are raised, and the pressure is ratcheted up as his career, reputation, marriage and even the venerable Investment Bank he works for are threatened. Cantella has undercover FBI agents hovering, spyware tracking him and weird messages arriving. Details indicate links to his first wife who disappeared four years previously…could it be Ivy at the bottom of all this, back from the dead?

This book is an entertaining, rollicking roller-coaster ride that will wind you right up. James Grippando, New York Times Bestselling Author of Intent to Kill and 15 other novels, captures the cockiness, resourcefulness, vulnerability and ultimately, the survival instincts, of a man put to such an extreme test. I recommend this book to those who love suspense novels such as The Firm.