The Art of Privilege

Carey Keith Green is a former investment banker. His third book The Art of Privilege (Rare Bird Books, 2023) uses his experience to set the stage and to imbue the tale with a deep knowledge of the subject, which is insider trading. Detective Charles Sleetch is called to the scene of the murder of a wealthy Wall Street investment banker and his girlfriend from his favorite strip joint. Homicide during the course of robbery was immediately ruled out when cash and an expensive watch were found in plain sight.

In a parallel thread former Wall Street trader Dylan Cash and his best friend tech whiz Binky Bannister are asked to return to Wall Street to help investment firm Thatcher Reed trace an information leak. Someone is sending data outside the firm to allow insider trading in the stocks of a huge defense corporation that has retained Thatcher Reed to help issue its first public offering. The success of the IPO is essential to Thatcher Reed’s continued survival. A single whisper of unethical or illegal behavior by someone in the firm will tank its reputation and could send a few folks to jail. It will besmirch the defense firm as well; in retaliation the retired general in charge of the company would lose no time in taking legal action against Thatcher Reed.

I love thrillers and mysteries that focus on banking, stocks, money, and economics. They are rare because so few crime authors understand the subject well enough to write about it authoritatively. The Emma Lathen series about banker John Putnam Thatcher was so successful because one of the authors was an economist. Green knows his stuff; his descriptions of the trading floor and the inner workings of an IPO drip authenticity. The story is told in alternating chapters, first one about Detective Sleetch and then one about Dylan and Binky. All three are engaging characters, but the transitions between the two story lines are awkward and I sometimes found it difficult to change between the two threads. Later in the book they come together and the flow is smoother. The sequence where Dylan and Binky break into the investment firm’s data center to plant a data tracking device is fun. Especially for fans of financial crime.