Description
Book SynopsisThe true story of the Ivy League hedge fund cowboys who gambled with the dangerously high stakes of the Asian stock market.
John Malcolm, high school football hero and Princeton graduate made his millions back in the early ''90s, a time when dozens of elite young American graduates made their fortunes in hedge funds in the Far East, beating the Japanese at their own game, riding the crashing waves of the Asian stock markets, gambling at impossibly high stakes and winning. Failure meant not only bankruptcy and disgrace à la Nick Leeson, but potentially even death - at the hands of the Japanese Yakuza: one of the world''s most notoriously violent organised crime syndicates.
Ugly Americans tells Malcolm''s story, and that of others like him, in a high octane book, filled with glamour, money and the dangers these incur, this true story is a cross between Mezrich''s own best-selling Bringing Down the House and Michael Lewis'' Liar''s Poker.
Trade ReviewThe author of the compelling
Bringing Down the House ... returns with another vivid true story ... Any movie shouldn't lack for colour * GQ *
When the movie rights to a novel are snapped up by Hollywood A-lister Kevin Spacey, you know its something special. And
Ugly Americans most definitely is ... An incredible true story ... it's impossible not to be amazed and absorbed into this parallel universe where East meets West, gangsters meet cowboys and everyone is just an earthquake away from disaster * Scottish Daily Record *
The propulsive narrative fairly roars "guilty pleasure." Yet
Ugly Americans is revelatory, a rush that leaves the reader reeling but reflective * Philadelphia Inquirer *
[Contains] all the ingredients of a great narrative - a main character the reader can relate to, an appealing love interest, money, danger, the need for acceptance, suspense ... In a truly engaging look at how an innocent who thinks he knows the world does actually end up understanding a small but significant piece of it, Mezrich manages to incorporate solid journalism into a narrative that just plain works * Publisher’s Weekly *
A high-octane passion play pitting a young man's ambition against his sense of humanity * Oregonian *
