Sands Point - Memoirs of a Money Trader

Book excerpt: These are the new go-go years, the eighties, and money is plentiful—custom-made designer clothes, champagne cocktails at Windows on the World, limousines lined up in front of the trendiest restaurants and private clubs along Park Avenue. The WTC is a beacon and venue for money traders. The US dollar is strong and cash, as always, is king. It is a decade of fast cars, fast markets, and fast talkers. And then the music stops. The yield curve is inverted, S&Ls are insolvent, OPEC is a dangerous cabal, Petrodollars and Eurodollars are flooding the financial markets, and countries are defaulting on loans. Billions of dollars disappear from the Vatican Bank, and the bank chairman, Roberto Calvi, is found "suicided" under the Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982. Meg is an aspiring actress, married to Dick, a struggling director. They live over a deli in a walk-up tenement on the eastside. What she dreams of is being married to a filthy rich man and shopping at couture salons on Madison Ave. Becky is writing a novel, living in Sands Point on Long Island, married to Kevin, a successful money market broker on Wall Street pre-9/11. She has everything a woman could want, except love. Alex is a middle-aged playboy who owns several businesses in town, drives a sports car and fantasizes about both of these women—but he's married. They are all married. None happily. Is money the cause of all unhappiness—too little, too much, never enough—and is it the root of all evil? Meg, Becky, and Alex never suspect what is really going on and where they will ultimately end up. Can money manipulate their destinies? Or, is it fate? A novel of fast money, easy money, love, sex, betrayal, international scandal, embezzlement, and murder. A modern story of the profound and deadly effects of deception.