Ghosts of Manhattan

Jerks. I wanted to like Douglas Brunt’s debut novel, Ghosts of Manhattan, but I remained distracted by the stereotyped characters and Brunt’s inability to flesh them out with more insight and depth. Protagonist Nick Farmer is a bond trader at Bear Stearns, and the lifestyle he pursues is wearing him down and hurting his marriage. Set between 2005 and 2007, the knowledge about the collapse of Bear sits with the reader, but remains a future event, outside the scope of the novel. So many of the adult characters are presented as adolescent jerks that the distraction of drinking, drugs, strippers and hookers became too central a focus for this novel to succeed. There are a dozen or so terrific pages in the almost three hundred pages of this book. Readers patient enough to wade through it all are likely to be rewarded. Those readers with a clear notion of Wall Street employment being a hedonistic lifestyle will be confirmed in their views when they read this novel. Rating: Two-star (Mildly Recommended) Click here to purchase Ghosts of Manhattan from amazon.com.