Amidst this world's international business, finances, and politics lie organizations and forces beyond our imaginations that control immense amounts of currencies that control many of the world's economies. Jay Newman' s knowledge of hedge funds, campaisns,and finance s lends to a fascinating novel of thrilling suspense that spans across the continents. This is certainly an intense undertcking.

I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed this! I know that sounds crass, but I’m not a huge reader of political thrillers but I heard great things about Red Sparrow and wanted to give this a chance. Well written, excellent character development, and a non-linear structure (which I personally enjoy) that’s well-executed. I can already see this making a fantastic movie. There are a lot of characters and it’s very long but it’s a worthwhile read. Recommend to anyone interested in TV shows similar to Homeland that focus on political issues happening in other countries and corruption.

Will post review on Instagram once release date is closer.

Undermoney is a compelling thriller regarding the string-pullers manipulating events with money, actions, and numerous other tactics. It centers around a group of military colleagues who steal a vast amount of cash intended for aid in the Middle East, as they attempt to repurpose it in a long game whose ultimate goal is electing one of their number to President.
Through the complications of storing and laundering the cash so they can use it, they entangle themselves with investors who are creating events and profiting off of them; with ties to international banking and Russian operatives. These lines go deeper and deeper with power plays and take the reader on a journey to exotic locales like airport-based tax haven vaults, ultra-luxury yachts, and underground enforced bunker safehouses.
Despite a penchant for long lists, especially when name-dropping, this is entertaining and gives the frightening view that the rich and powerful are just as paranoid, irrational, and capricious as anyone else; but with far greater consequences tied to their actions. The author's experience in these circles makes it all the more chilling.

This is a political thriller about a group of individuals who are former military or government agents who consider themselves patriots. They work under the auspices of a two star general who maintains a low profile. In Syria, they acquired approximately two billion dollars (two skids of well wrapped hundreds) that they have secreted. They are looking for ways to launder this money so it can be used to insure the election of their candidate for the presidency. The novel deals with the who and the how of their plots and the results of these plots. I won’t go into any more of the story because of spoilers, but will say it was, for me, slow reading. So much information was given out that, as a reader, I had to simply digest it, however it did not really detract from the story. Thanks to Net Galley and Scribner for an ARC for an honest review.

Undermoney marks the debut of Jay Newman with a unique perspective on political espionage thrillers. Most of the modern ones deal with narratives about moles and large-scale attacks with a healthy amount of action sequences to progress the story. Jay Newman takes a page out of Jason Matthews’ Red Sparrow series of using natural conversations and seductive character interactions to drive the readers through the story. However, Undermoney differentiates itself by casting a bright spotlight on the role of giant finance machines operating behind the scenes of power plays on a global scale.
The story focuses on a team of former US military members who plan the ultimate heist to steal untraceable money from a Middle Eastern warzone. The money is geared towards propelling one of their own into the White House to fundamentally restructure America’s domestic and foreign policies. The problem isn’t pulling off the heist, rather it is making that money clean enough to use in the electoral campaign. This predicament allows the readers to gain mind-blowing insights into the intricacies of cleaning black money and stock manipulation shown in vivid details and realistic timeline as part of the narrative.
The book is packed with fascinating economic tidbits that expose the reader to the vast and epic world of financial operations. As a result, the story feels less like a work of fiction and more like a top-secret account of real people in the current cutthroat socio-economic environment controlled by ruthless spies and unhinged business men. The twists and turns are wonderfully unpredictable and the ending is a dark culmination to a smartly unconventional story that rightfully demands your full attention to understand the nuances of the characters’ motivations and endgames. The narrative does slow down midway, but Jay Newman keeps the entertainment high throughout with informative nuggets of financial wisdom as well as an attractive aura of watching the team game economic sanctions in ingenious ways.
Jay Newman has opened the doors for a potentially superb and creative series with Undermoney and I am eager to see how he continues the story. No doubt this will cause quite a stir as it hits stores early next year!

Full review with blurb image on: https://www.bestthrillerbooks.com/kashif-hussain/undermoney-by-jay-newman

Yes! A story for us few and proud financial wonks. A book that actually allows me to leverage my Finance MBA for more than just building spreadsheets. Thank you, Jay Newman! Undermoney is an elaborately detailed, ambitious financial and political thriller the likes we haven’t seen before despite it being about something as old as time itself – the pursuit of money and power.

It’s impossible to sum up Undermoney’s intricate plotlines and international intrigue in a simple paragraph. There’s a lot going on, starting with a group of American soldiers who steal a couple of billion dollars during the Iraq war as part of a long game to eventually install one of their own in the Oval Office and reshape American politics. Then there’s an insanely and inexplicably successful trillion-dollar hedge fund led by an enigmatic genius financial mind that is not only getting insider information but actually manipulating world events and profiting from the global financial market responses. Oh, and there’s the private Russian military company that has its hands in everything from money laundering to fighting Putin’s wars by proxy. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s an organization behind the scenes that seems to be pulling all the strings without consequence. Throw in a little money laundering, kompromat and death and this book has a little bit of everything that you could possibly want in a thriller with no less than the future of the world at stake.

While there’s a healthy dose of financial operations and market maneuvering that will appeal to those working on Wall Street and/or those in possession of an advanced degree in finance, Jay Newman does a good job keeping it simple for all to follow. And thankfully that stuff isn’t the main focus of the book. Instead, Undermoney spends the majority of time providing an infuriating look at the rich and powerful not only playing by a different set of rules, but manipulating momentous world events for their own personal financial profit. The big question you have to ask yourself as you read Undermoney is whether this is really fiction or actually a non-fiction account of a secret cabal of billionaires, politicians and financiers who are influencing the world order and getting rich at the expense of the rest of us suckers. Because everything in this book feels incredibly realistic to the point that if it’s not already happening then it’s just a matter of time.

I’m fascinated to see where Jay Newman takes this story next as it has the makings of an epic trilogy that blurs the lines between fact and fiction. Undermoney isn’t to be missed, especially by fans of highly detailed, realistic thrillers the likes of Jason Matthews and Don Winslow. It has the potential to be that special.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Undermoney by Jay Newman. This was a read a little outside my normal genres, but I did enjoy it. This is about a group, consisting of former militants who plan to restructure American society by taking over the largest dark money operation. Their first plan of action is to get "their" candidate, Ben Corn, elected president. He is the perfect person, in their eyes, to get their mission accomplished. But Corn harbors some secrets of his own. Next this groups seeks the help of Greta Webb, a CIA agent who is an expert on dark money operations. As the story progresses, both geographically (across the globe) and also through some very dangerous alliances, the group must decide how many and how large of a sacrifice (s) it's willing to make to carry out their plan. Definitely an interesting read.

Most thrillers require some suspension of belief. After all, just how long could Jason Bourne stay out of jail for all the stuff he pulled? The success of the thriller depends on how much belief must be suspended before you toss the book across the room, a continuum ranging from “Yeah, right, ha ha” to “What the heck??” Unfortunately, you get to the far end of the belief line- that WTH- pretty quick with this book, pretty much after about page ten, with escalating versions of WTH all the way to the end.

A group of US military members and civilians, under the direction of a mysterious Special Ops general, hijacks a load of cash intended for various Iraqi/Syrian/scumbag warlords in order to finance the election prospects of one of the military members. Okay, cool, let’s roll with it...except the cash is billions of dollars, actual dollars, routinely dropped out the back of US aircraft at various points in the Middle East at the direction of the US government to smooth the way for operational convoys traversing warlord lands. Billions of dollars. Dropped at US government orders. All over the place. And these guys hijack one of the shipments.

WTH?

You’d think this billions-to-mullahs operation would probably raise a squawk or two from, oh, say, Rand Paul, so the implication is that this is an operation so secret and hidden than no one except the people involved know about it, a la Ollie North and the Contras. But, if you remember, Ollie, and even Barack Obama’s eerily identical cash-to-mullahs operation, were both exposed about five minutes after they happened, so how in the world? Especially since not only SpecOPS and CIA are involved, but also Russian contractors and the Syrian army, as well as the warlords expecting the cash. No chance any of them would squawk, nah.

Perhaps I am showing my age, but thrillers back in my day tossed mere millions of dollars willy and nilly about the dark spook world of intrigue and backstabbing and 007, hiding the missing cash within those $500 Pentagon hammers. But, this is billions. Billions. Apparently being air dropped weekly. That sure am a lot of hammers.

The hijackers are led by Don, a supersoldier, and Greta Webb, a superspy, with the help of Chip, Don’s pal, who recommended a Russian mercenary contract outfit named Parsifal led by Chip’s old friend, a former KGB murderer named Fyodor seconded by another KGB murderer named Vadim (gee, I wonder if Chip could be like a mole or something?) to provide perimeter security while Don and Greta hijack this cash load which is diverted from its true warlord target midflight by Tommy the mysterious Pentagon general, to assist Ben Corn, a member of Don and Tommy’s unit, to begin his campaign for Presidency because both Don and Tommy know, just know, that Ben Corn’s going to be a great President, just is, and this country is so screwed up that we have to hijack billions of dollars from the government in order to get our guy running the government some years from now.

WTH?

No old fashioned greed here, no no. These guys are patriots and they are going to get their guy in office and change everything. Everything. Even if they have to commit numerous felonies to bring it about.

Well, I guess that is somewhat believable.

But all this faith in Ben Corn...a guy who acts and sounds like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris had a baby (sorry for the image) and was raised to be the Saviour...seems rather naive by a bunch of hardened special ops killers and CIA assassins who’ve been around the block enough times they can pull of a major hijacking of billions of dollars without anyone noticing, killing dozens of members of Assad’s Royal Guards in the process. Without Assad noticing. I mean, does Ben Corn urinate wine or something?

But, okay, this is the story, so go with it. Belief suspended...so now forget everything you just accepted because about 20-40 pages later it’s a few years later and we are onto a completely different story that has very little to do with the opening premise. Nope. Now we are concerned with the kidnapping of a bazillionaire named Elias Vickers right out of his own exclusive party by one guy who represents a super mysterious financial organization that has been around since the Templars and is mad at Elias because of something his nephew did.

WTH does this have to do with Don, Greta, and Ben Corn and the price of tea in China?

Well, you’re gonna have to go about 500 pages into this second story before you find out, a 500 pages that includes Death by PowerPoint and one of the most ridiculous CSI-fantasy forensic techniques of psychological screening ever conceived. If you haven’t tossed the book across the room by then, that is.

Yeah, hey, I know, I know, political thriller, belief is to be suspended, I get it. But not to the point of science fiction.

Suggestion to fix this: Move the last third of the book to the beginning of the book and mix the remaining two thirds smartly and adroitly throughout.

And get rid of the Powerpoint presentation.

I really wanted to like this book and I love the idea of dirty corporate money laundering and how it affects geopolitics - the author clearly knows his stuff here. But as a thriller it doesn’t work yet. The characters aren’t compelling, so even though there’s lots of big exciting plot, I just don’t care about the characters. But I would still read the next book by this author as I think the topic of corporate finance as it intersects with geopolitics is fascinating and a worthy thriller topic.

I like the idea here, and Newman clearly knows his stuff - but I just don't know enough about the world of Finance to have found all the details as fascinating as I apparently needed to on order to stay wholly engrossed in this one... As a political / world events thriller, it floundered a little bit for me as a result.
I kept getting mired in the details presented, which pulled me out of the action. The characters were fairly unlikeable and while I get that this goes with the territory, it didn't help pull me in to the narrative... I think I'm just not the right audience for this one.

I really wanted to like this book, and there were some really good parts. But, I had trouble getting into it. Im still not sure if there was a protagonist, and if so, who it was; all of the characters seemed crooked and dirty. The historical stuff was fascinating, though.

Although a bit too long, this is pretty good. It felt quite real at times. Some readers won't like the non-linear structure. Others will like that that breaks it up a bit. I didn't always stay engaged, but like this overall.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Undermoney by Jay Newman

Wow!

Undermoney had a lot of characters, locations, subplots and rockem’-sockem’ action….just the type of tale I look for. It took me a while to connect all the moving parts but they came together very nicely in an ending that, to a certain degree, surprised me.

Stories such as this are what I am looking for to be entertained: somewhat contemporary in time and event background, not too-futuristic technology, world-wide travel with believable characters. All of these features provided me with hours of entertainment and yet did not require deep-thought to make the tale convincing.

Bravo on a good story.

Undermoney by Jay Newman is a well-written and engrossing read with well developed characterizations. Well worth the time spent reading.

Former military patriots are trying to get their senator elected president. Their plan is to restructure the government. I found the book a bit hard to follow with all the jumping around from one place to the next. The action also seemed a bit disjointed and all the Russian names slowed down the book for me.

A very long and thrilling read. I loved reading about the lives of the super rich and how money moves around and those who are rich get to stay rich. This novel was really good but dragged in certain places. If it could be pared down a bit, it might flow a little better. I tend to get through books quickly and a few times I checked my progress I noticed I still had a long ways to go. I would like to have seen more on Ben Corn and how the money impacted his trajectory. Maybe in the next book. A very good offering that portends many good things from the author in the future.
Thank you Netgalley, Jay Newman and Scribner for the DRC for my honest review.

Jay did an amazing job illuminating a vast and thrilling world that's already right in front of our very eyes. The book's interwoven storylines and interesting characters make for a very entertaining read.

The book can drag in places, and the writing can be very detail-heavy.

Undermoney is not an easy read. I struggled to the 40% mark where the so-called "patriots" were reading and viewing the secret psychological files of the man they were after. It was incredible first that the shrink had taped and kept these sessions, but even more so that these so-called patriots had no respect for the privacy involved and broke rules to obtain access. It made me start psychologizing, but about the author Jay Newman. Does he not expect that people will try to read his novel? He constantly goes off on detours or lengthy explanations of things that don't need explaining. Is he not amenable to an editor? The paper copy of the novel is almost 500 pages of heavy reading. Yes, I would prefer to finish it, but so many ethical boundaries have been crossed by the so-called patriots that I am offended. This is not literature! Perhaps I can put the novel down for a while and return to it.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Undermoney is filled with action that will have you wanting more!
You will dive into the lives of the world’s richest people.
former military, are looking for a way to get their number one choice, Senator Ben Corn, elected president. Corn is a telegenic, perfect candidate—yet harbors secrets that threaten him.
I devoured this book it was everything!.
Really enjoyed this book!