With the
publication of his first novel, "The Billion Dollar Sure
Thing," Paul Erdman joined the ranks of accomplished thriller
writers. His second novel, "The Silver Bears," less
intense though funnier, secured his reputation as the master
of financial intrigue. Unfortunately, his third release, "The
Crash of '79," was an international best seller; unfortunately
because it has led him to try to repeat that success with "The
Panic of '89," which is in some ways his most disappointing
book.
Once again,
the venue is international finance, this time centered on a
plot to bring down the Bank of America and with it the American
economy. The players include the ruthless head of a Swiss bank,
a consortium of greedy European money houses, a conspiracy of
Third World oil and finance ministers, the International Monetary
Fund, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the FBI, the KGB,
the free-lance terrorist known as Carlos and, to add barely
a dollop of sexual interest, a beautiful and worldly Iranian
businesswoman and a smart and sexy reporter for The Wall Street
Journal.
The hero is international finance professor Paul Mayer, "one
of Georgetown's most prominent residents ... {known around Washington}
as a cross between Henry Kissinger and Paul Volcker." Mayer
is about to be drawn into Washington's inner circle more deeply
and dangerously than he would have imagined possible.
The time is December 1988. The Reagan administration has held
things together more ably than some would have predicted. It
is being replaced by a Democratic administration. The domestic
and world economies are shaky, buffeted by an oil glut that
followed the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The United States is
slipping into a recession accompanied by high unemployment.
The budget crisis of the mid-'80s is still unresolved and the
dollar is teetering on the edge of an even more precipitous
slide.
Meanwhile, American banks are dangerously overextended, holding
billions of dollars in worthless paper issued to Third World
countries. The governments of Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela are
collapsing under the weight of foreign debt. They threaten to
withhold payments on their debts unless the U.S. government
fixes a favorable minimum price for their oil exports. The Swiss-led
consortium backs the oil producers, expecting to profit handsomely
from the Americans' distress. As one of the largest holders
of foreign loans, the Bank of America is at high risk of bankruptcy.
The conspirators are counting on the U.S. government to come
to the rescue of the crippled giant. For insurance, they hire
the terrorist Carlos to up the ante. As the American point man,
Paul Mayer orchestrates some imaginative countermoves, though
he nearly fatally underestimates the dimensions of the danger.
Readers for whom genre fiction is an opportunity to educate
themselves about matters arcane will not be disappointed by
"The Panic of '89." Though Erdman's lectures sometimes
extend through page after page of pedantic dialogue, he gives
the reader a believable sense of how the international banking
system functions. No one can read these pages without coming
away with a surer understanding of the precariousness of the
whole business.
What is disappointing, however, is that a writer so good at
demonstrating the way things work should be so bad at explaining
human behavior. Though Erdman reveals a sure if cynical comprehension
of the ways in which certain personalities move through the
corridors of power, he is unable to depict believably even the
simplest motivations.
Even as he holds us riveted to the fate of nations, he leaves
us indifferent to the human beings who inhabit them. His is
an almost wholly intellectual kind of thriller. Having convincingly
put the world economy in jeopardy, he holds your attention by
making you wonder how he will get it out again. But where the
fate of the protagonists is concerned, only one passage in the
entire volume is genuinely gripping.
Erdman's fictional characters are forgettable. And even the
personalities brought in from real life, such as Carlos and
Kissinger, are anachronisms, hoary figures limned with the glib
superficiality of profiles in People magazine. Even the sex
is perfunctory; Erdman is only really hot for numbers. This
all may be beside the point, of course, because despite its
shortcomings "The Panic of '89" holds your interest.
(Book World, The Washington Post; February 13, 1987)
