Word: erdman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Paul Erdman...
...seems like only yesterday that it was next year. Paul Erdman's The Panic of '89 was on the best-seller lists, sounding financial doom in the midst of a powerful bull market. That was, in fact, in the winter of '87, nine months before reality iced Wall Street. Erdman does not have to worry; quicker than a program trade, here he is, hedging his investments with a sixth novel. The Palace offers no scenario for economic disaster. Quite the contrary. The book is a racy tale of how one clever and gutsy (though not especially honest) fellow can rise...
...Erdman, a former banker in Switzerland, knows all the tricks of pecuniary titillation. The main characters are all endowed with big bottom lines. Short, grubby Danny Lehman, the dubious hero, parlays his assets into fantasies of opulence, power and sex. Lehman is a loner who outwits the law and organized crime and favors the company of a hooker who reads Dostoyevsky. All things considered, he is more appealing than the run-of-the-mill Sammy Glick. Erdman's knowledge about money laundering and creative financing firmly establishes the novel's authority. An unabashed weakness for shady operators and a hearty...
...Erdman, who has a degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Basel, did what many other gifted men have done when confronted with enforced leisure. He wrote a novel. The Billion Dollar Sure Thing (1973) involved the President of the U.S. and his Secretary of the Treasury in a frantic effort to save the international monetary system. It was short on narrative technique but long on expertise. There was no panting sex, and the sharks wore three-piece suits. Yet Erdman, like Bernie Cornfeld, another tarnished golden...
...Erdman formula for economic disaster is not foolproof. Despite their Rent-a-Wreck plots and Who's Who characters, his books about high finance require more concentration than is usually applied to mass-market fiction. Mixing dollars and sensibility is the problem with fiscal novels in general, and Erdman's The Panic of '89 in particular...