Certainly an impressive debut. Check up the trigger warnings as this book definitely will stick with you with an its dark themes. Realistically raw and to the core heartbreaking.

This was good. I was intrigued and engaged. The flow wasn't the best for me but I truly thought the story was interesting.

Took me ages to get into this one but I enjoyed it in the end, even though the subject matter was slightly depressing at times, not a bad read in all to be fair and I’d defo recommend it to others 😊

I ended up really liking this, though it took me a while to get into it.

A shady stock market trader owes an absurd amount of money to a gangster and comes up with a scheme to sell afterlife dollars. Ultimately, this ends up causing a world economic crisis.

This book shows the power of currency and proposes the point that currency only has perceived value. If enough people believe in it, it becomes powerful. I do think having some economics knowledge will help to truly understand this, but it may not be entirely necessary. The story itself is compelling and well told.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. This is a good read full of twists but a little depressing at times.

Thank you to tbr author Aaaaaand publisher for the ARC Oof this novel. I was initially very excited by the description, but it wasn't where what I thought it would be. Obviously the stuff is intelligent, but the novel simply could not hold my interest and game tedious.

Srinath Adiga's latest work is exciting and superbly entertaining. This advanture story is a must read. As far as the writing style and narration is concerned, it is absolutely fantastic. The way author has wevaed the story with the mastery of writing style and narration, it is truly commendable. Overall, it was a great experience. I highly recommend this work and give it full 5 stars for the writing, narration and overall presentation. Happy Reading.

I never thought I could enjoy a book about money but here we are.

This book follows the lives of three men interacting with dollars, in very, very different situation and circumstances. Raymond is desperate with an idea who owes money to the mob. Sanjit is suffering an unfair fate. Theo is fiercely trying to make things right.
Its hard place this as satire because its so like real life. The dystopian feel was so gipping even though sadly this is our reality. the writing made me continue even when I didn’t think I wanted to.
I enjoyed Mara’s character the most.
I thoroughly enjoyed the twisted humour and sharp insight

Overall, this an interesting read and I recommend it if you are going for something with dark humour but also very intelligent.
I wanna thank netgalley for this (e)ARC
4 stars

To be honest, this book completely lost me from the first page. I don’t know what’s the reason, maybe the kind of cheesy writing or the super reductionist beginning (East Asians crazy about money and willing to do everything for it), or who knows what….

I picked up Dead Money because the premise intrigued me. Those first few sentences of the synopsis reeled me in. I'm every so glad I happened upon this stunning debut. Although the story wasn't always easy to sit with, it's worth the time sitting with.

"How can you stop something that's on a mission to destroy itself?"
-Theo, Loc 6278

In Dead Money , SAdiga deftly weaves together three stories in three locales with three different characters connected by one cleverly crafted over-arching plot. In the first story, set in Hong Kong, we meet a stock market trader and see the scary genius employed to create Afterlife Dollars. We're also privy to the greed and corruption that led to its creation.

The second story, set in Mumbai, India, follows a 30 year old man with a terminal diagnosis. He buys into the safety and comfort that Afterlife Dollars will provide and is will to do ANYTHING to secure the funds to make that possible. Even, essentially, sell his soul.

The third story, set in The Netherlands, revolves around an investment banker whose life has been and will be affected by Afterlife Dollars in myriad ways.

SAdiga entwines race, class, religion, wealth, poverty, greed, politics, and economics to illustrate the folly and frailty of man. Afterlife Dollars prey upon human fears while fulfilling the desire of others to amass fortunes under any circumstance. And proves,

"...people became impervious to reason when they were under the spell of a con man."
-Former Police Officer, Loc 4553

Dead Money is very relevant despite being written prior to 2020. It's illuminating but also deeply saddening. A masterpiece of a debut.

From the first few pages, I didn’t think I was going to like it. But I held on and I don’t regret it. I was hooked into the tale, which is of how to get people to buy into a con. It was at times funny, at others entertaining. I mostly enjoyed the 3 separate yet interconnected stories because it showed how the con evolved.

Special thanks to Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley for ARC and physical copy of this cleverly written and multi-faceted book.

This book had a lots of twists and turns. It connects three men who are connected to Afterlife Money, which is a Chinese mythology that you can have a good afterlife if you can bring your riches with you. One man owes gangsters 53 million dollars, one comes from Mumbai and absolutely believes in the Chinese mythology that you can bring your money and valuables with you to the afterlife, and one is a banker trying to stop a global crisis. Lots of twists and turns, cleverly written 4 stars!

Get your copy soon. It's a very interesting way of thinking.

Raymond Li is a corrupt Hong Kong trader who loses all of his gangster client's money. Desperate to find a quick money-making idea, he comes up with the concept of Afterlife Dollars - investing your money in a financial instrument that you can draw down on after you die, in order to buy your way into heaven.

Li's idea takes off beyond his wildest dreams, and grows to being traded all over the world, with branches of Li's Bank of Eternity opening up in other nations, and taking huge sums from customers eager to ensure a good life after death.

The book is a series of three connected stories. The first is the account of Li's predicament and his cunning invention. The second story is set in Mumbai years later, where a young man discovers that he has a terminal illness and starts to be attracted to the idea of Afterlife Dollars. The final story is about a Dutch investment banker who has identified the desperate threat that Afterlife Dollars poses to the real-world economy, but is forced by his employers to sell them as an investment anyway.

This is a very sharp novel based on a clever concept that I have not encountered elsewhere. Adiga takes what could have been quite a comedic notion in his first story, and then develops it into a tale about a credible threat to the world as we know it. He ties together a lot of themes, including the dark economy, the basis assumptions on which our economic system relies, the effects of economic crashes, and even pandemics. It feels like a very current and even somewhat prescient critique of global capitalism and its weaknesses.

Dead Money by Srinath Adiga is a debut thriller written from the POVs of three separate characters: Raymond who lost $53 million and has to figure out a way to pay it back, Sanjit who is desperate to secure his afterlife since he’s dying, and Theo who is dealing with a change in business after a terrorist attack. All of the stories are connected. They live in the same world but aren’t quite overlapping.

Each of the characters is flashy, petty, and angry. They all are quick to get angry about their fates. This gives them all a ruthless edge that makes it hard to like them but definitely makes them entertaining to read about. Raymond is desperate to come up with the perfect product. He’s business partners with a mob boss whose money he’s lost. While afterlife dollars are good to market to older folks, they really take off when a virus overtakes the population, resulting in a large amount of casualties. Sanjit is in a different boat. His fate is tied up in having a debilitating illness and securing a better afterlife. And Theo just has regret that he couldn’t prevent economic devastation with a shaky stock market.

Dead Money was an entertaining read, though the characters’ misogyny gets in the way of it truly being fun. The pacing is uneven but because each part of the story exists in its own world, it doesn’t become unreadable. Not a bad book for someone looking for a flashy thriller.

Thank you to Netgalley, Central Avenue Publishing and Srinath Abiga for this e-copy in return for my honest review. It's an impressive debut and a compelling read but for me it felt a little like non fiction, somewhat of a study into economics and greed.

This is honestly one of the scariest book I've ever read. Its horror lies not in the supernatural, or any gruesome murder or crime plot, but in the startlingly reality it presents. The major economic crash in this book that leads to unprecedented poverty and homelessness, as well as the increase of extreme political and social movements, is caused by the idea of Afterlife Dollars, with increasing numbers of people investing in their afterlives at the expense of the current economy. The resulting fallout feels all too real in today's climate, and this book shows how a seemingly crazy concept - that of needing to save money for when we are dead - is actually something that can warp the minds of millions of people and cause the end of the modern world.
The book follows three people who are affected in differing ways by Afterlife Dollars, and the final section, following Theo, is where we see a culmination of the years of increasing value being placed on this Bank of Eternity. The chaos that ensues, and the fact that so many people in the book find ways for this chaos to inspire hate, especially towards other races and countries, feels scarily possible right now. I appreciate the fact that Theo is only able to find solace in meditation and inner peace. Where the Afterlife Dollars point to a crude and mercenary understanding of spirituality, the book ends with this more serene idea of a loving spirituality, one that we have to hold onto when everything around us is going wrong.

I enjoyed this story about the invention of afterlife banking using capitalist and religious ideas, and it's ripple effects on the world.
I suppose this would fit in the dystopian fiction category although a lot of it felt very close to reality right now.
There are 3 different stories in different parts of the world. I usually prefer a single narrative, and did warm to Raymond in Hong Kong more than the others, but in this case the format works to show the global effects and links.
A very different and original novel.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

No, thank you. DNF. I wasn't expecting the opening to be so dark (which is...quite possibly on me, given the premise) but also, the writing is...strange? The verbs and adjectives attached to the characters, especially in dialogue, are over-dramatic and childish. The dialogue itself is very weak, and it reads like a bad script - not like things real people would actually say. The premise wasn't enough to pull me through reading the full book, alas.

This is the book of the year for me. It is engaging, relevant, gripping and sometimes emotional for the reader. I can see this book being liked by all readers of all ages and social backgrounds.

English/Spanish

Thanks to Netgally for giving me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was without doubt one of the best that I have read, personally it is very difficult for me to give 5 stars to a book, for me it has to have certain aspects such as the narrator, complex us of times, proposal in the topic and the language, among other technical characteristics in order for me to consider a 5 stars book. But Death money blows my mind in all aspects.
Talking about this story is kind of complicated, but here I go.
Raymond Li is an accountant who works for the chinese mafia, because of some reasons Raymond owns the mafia a lot of money and in the middle of his desperations he runs away and ends up close to an old man who is lighting up some fake money, as part of a chinese tradition, in order for the death person to receive the “money” in the next life. Thanks to this event Raymond comes with the idea of the AfterLife dollars. With some coworkers Raymond creates the bank of the afterlife, a place where you can deposit your money (being alive) so when you are dead you are able to receive those savings and enjoy them in death and you can have a peaceful rest full of commodities and luxuries.
This is how Death Money begins, something you have to have in mind if you are going to read this books is that it isn’t about Raymond and his life, no, but the idea of the afterlife and what is waiting for us when we die, ¿is it possible to save your money to spend it in a kind of heaven? That's the main topic, Raymond is just one of the three main characters.
The story takes place first in China, then we move to Mumbai to finish in Amsterdam.
I must say this book is not for everyone, it has a complex structure that connects itself based on the main idea and not the characters; the narrator is curious in the way that in some cases it talks directly to the reader; the book is full of critic and it has to be read carefully if you want to understand deeply what’s happening.
Death money is a story that asks a lot of your attention and in return it gives you a great proposal and a strong reflection at the end. 5/5 stars





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Gracias a Netgally por brindarme una copia avanzada de este libro a cambio de una opinión honesta.

Este sin duda ha sido uno de los mejores libros que he leído, personalmente es muy dificil para mi darle 5 estrellas a un libro, para mi tiene que tener ciertos aspectos complejos como el narrador, uso de tiempos, propuesta de tema y propuesta de lenguaje para que lo pueda considerar como uno de 5 estrellas. Y Death money sin duda me voló la cabeza en todos los aspectos.
Hablar de que trata es un poco complicado, pero aquí voy.
Nos presentan a Raymond Li, un hombre que trabaja como contador de la mafia china a la cual por diversas circunstancias le debe muchísimo dinero, en medio de su desesperación Raymond huye y termina encontrándose con un anciano que quema billetes falsos con la esperanza de que el “dinero” le llegue a su pariente muerto en el más allá, como parte de la tradición china. Gracias a este evento a Raymond se le ocurre la idea de los dólares del Afterlife. Desesperado por conseguir el dinero para pagarle a la Mafia, Raymond plantea junto a un grupo de personas la idea de un banco en el más allá. Un lugar conde en vida podrás depositar tu dinero con la esperanza de que lo recibas después de la muerte y puedas disfrutar un eterno descanso lleno de paz.
Así es como inicia Death money, tengan en cuenta que no todo el libro se trata de Raymond, sino de la idea del más allá, que es lo que hay, ¿es posible gastar tu dinero en la muerte? ese es el principal tema, Raymond es solo uno de los tres personajes principales.
Aquí la historia inicia en China, se extiende hasta Mumbai y termina en Amsterdam.
Tengo que decir que este libro no es para todos, tiene una estructura compleja que se conecta a base de la idea principal y no de los personajes, el narrador resulta curioso pero muy acertado y sin duda es bastante lento, está lleno de crítica y tiene que leerse con cuidado.
Es un libro que te exige demasiada atención y por lo tanto tú como lector exiges de vuelta a la historia. Sin duda la propuesta es llamativa y la reflexión final es bastante fuerte. 5/5 estrellas.