THE CASTRO GENE
Todd Buchholz
Oceanview Publishing
Thriller
ISBN-10:1933515066
ISBN-13: 978-1933515069

• About the Book
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview -- May 18, 2007

If Todd Buchholz's name is familiar, it should be. He is the go-to guy for any number of networks when an explanation of a complicated economic principle is needed in basic English. It just so happens that I refer to his books --- FROM HERE TO ECONOMY and NEW IDEAS FROM DEAD ECONOMISTS, among others --- when I have to explain to my nine-year-old daughter why I can't raise her allowance and need an excuse she can understand. Buchholz has made the decision to jump the fence, as it were, and has published his first work of fiction, a thriller with a bit of mystery and a touch of dark humor included.

The chief (but by all means not the only) protagonist of THE CASTRO GENE is Luke Braden, an up-and-coming boxer whose career is derailed when he accidentally kills an opponent in the ring. Reduced to working a security detail in a high-rise office building in New York's financial district, Braden, through a series of steps and missteps, finds himself sitting in the office of Paul Tremont. Tremont seemingly has more money than God as the result of successfully running Tremont Advisors, reputed to be the hottest hedge fund around (and if you don't know what a hedge fund is, you can discover the answer to that, and many other questions, by reading this book).

Why has he chosen a washed-up professional boxer whose best years in any profession would seem to be behind him? Well, there are many reasons: the elements that the business world and boxing have in common --- Braden's canny intelligence and Tremont's largess, among others. Then there are the real reasons --- reasons that go back in history and point directly to the issue of who Luke Braden is. He has no clue as to how to uncover these reasons without the help of his estranged father. Before the novel is over, Braden will discover that everything he ever knew about himself is wrong and that he is in the process of being set up --- and used --- to change the course of history.

Buchholz makes an easy transition between fiction and nonfiction, though he cannot resist giving a finance lesson or two to the uninitiated. It's all good, however, with the reader as the winner, even as he provides a new and totally original theory to what perhaps is the most tantalizing mystery of the 20th century. If Buchholz can tear himself away from the world of economics and come back to fiction anytime soon, I'll be waiting.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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