Top Producer » (First Edition)

A NOTE FROM AUTHOR NORB VONNEGUT

A funny thing happened during my 60-hour weeks as a wealth advisor. I discovered the joy of writing. For years my partners and I wrote our clients about investment decisions, why we bought this stock or sold that one. I loved the wordplay and believe our letters woke an inner beast.

They never quite sated my appetite, though. I longed to write stories about Wall Street’s people, the crazy things that percolate through trading floors and broker bullpens. My people, characters that is, hail from the trenches of finance. Brokers. Traders. Sales assistants. There is the occasional CEO, or the bigger than life hedgie. But I am not trying to pluck some legend from the business press and fictionalize that person. My characters find themselves thrust into uncomfortable worlds by forces far beyond their control.

Working on Wall Street’s front lines prepped me to write this fiction. I was a Managing Director at Silvercrest Asset Management, a money management firm where I had the great fortune to work. I spent the previous 14 years on the “sell-side,” industry jargon for brokerages and investment banks, including stints at Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Management division, Paine Webber, and Chase Manhattan in Melbourne, Australia. Ten of those years were with a white-shoe brokerage, the place where I began writing Top Producer.

In a world that moves as fast as finance does, top producers have to think three steps ahead and make snap decisions. Theirs is a blurred version of reality, one that conceals moves as much as it rewards the bold ones. All too easily, scams can be disguised as success; plotting can be mistaken for killer instincts. And as Grove O’Rourke finds out, “Nothing obscures vulnerability like success. Nothing that is, except for friendships.”

But this book isn’t about stocks and bonds—it’s about people. About Grove O’Rourke, top producer at the investment firm of Sachs, Kidder, and Carnegie, and about his best friend, Charlie Kelemen, whose spectacular murder is carried out in front of hundreds of horrified party-goers at the opening of the novel. It’s about Charlie’s widow, who comes to Grove for help after her husband’s death, even though she’s hiding a dark secret. And it’s about how money—vast sums of money—can cover up even the most glaring imper fections in relationships, and fool everyone.

Well, almost everyone.

With the ease of someone who has lived in the world of top producers, NorbVonnegut has crafted a sharp, dark thriller that will make you think—and then double-check your investments.

Publishers Weekly

Vonnegut’s debut meets the gold standard for financial thrillers as it puts the frenzied, cutthroat world of Wall Street’s best stockbrokers (aka the “top producers”) on brilliant display. Ripples from the bizarre murder of Charlie Kelemen, wealthy hedge fund operator, quickly reach his best friend, Grove O’Rourke. A top producer at the boutique investment bank Sachs, Kidder and Carnegie, O’Rourke tries to help Kelemen’s widow sort out some financial questions. This process leads him deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of deceit. As fallout from Charlie’s death and dealings start to taint O’Rourke, the sharks, inside and outside his own firm, smell blood and begin to circle. O’Rourke won’t go down without a fight, and not all the blood in the water will be his. Vonnegut, himself a veteran fund manager, handles the arcane terminology and slang of Wall Street with aplomb, never letting it get in the way of the story. 100,000 first printing. (Sept.)