The Analyst
By: P.T. Dawkins
Published: August, 2011
Format: Paperback, 300 pages
ISBN: 9781605947235
Publisher: Llumina Press
After David Heart’s father’s estate is squandered by bad advice, his mother faces eviction and his grandfather needs life-saving surgery. A seemingly-helpful family friend finds David a seat at a bucket-shop off-Wall Street firm with the promise that money flows like wine. This fateful step begins David Heart's journey through the world of finance, where everything has a price, in the thrilling and page turning novel The Analyst, by P.T. Dawkins.
The author brings his almost three decades of personal experience, in the high powered and often unethical world of high finance, to the pages of his novel. The aptly named David Heart, torn by emotions, his sense of ethics and ideals, and the desperate need for ready cash, finds his moral values challenged in ways he never thought possible. The author names his characters, seen representatives of various archetypes, to illustrate their role in this modern day morality play. David Heart begins his voyage through the shark infested waters of finance with high ideals and the best of intentions. Abused by a cruel head trader named Blackie, an archetypical villain, David takes some life changing steps in attempt to re-balance his ethical worldview.
P.T. Dawkins (photo left) provides a novel that is, at its core, a tale of ethical and moral principles. Once compromised, these critical values are very hard to regain, and they can only be repurchased at a very high cost. Faced with the dark world of the bucket shop, and its complete lack of ethical values of any kind, David seeks his salvation in the form of the street wise saleswoman Sandy Allen.
What David soon discovers is the price of return to his own world of ethics and moral values, is full of dangers, deceit, and hidden agendas. The descent into the world where money is all that matters, and how it was obtained is not even part of the equation, David learns that no one can be trusted. Survival in this fall from grace world requires an understanding of its special code, and that redemption can only be achieved through its own terms.
The novel is a morality play, where the characters are representatives of types, and the world is one where what David considers the normal rules of behavior no longer apply. Through the entry point of the bucket shop, David enters into ever deeper levels of the sordid underbelly of society. David must live the hero's journey, and rise above the standards of the place, to reach his salvation and that of his financially troubled family. Through a series of compromises, the author demonstrates how morals and ethics cab be corrupted very easily. The ideals once lost, can only be retrieved through an act of redemption. For David, redemption is inexorably linked with personal tragedy and sacrifice.
I highly recommend the fast paced and several layered book
The Analyst by P.T. Dawkins, to anyone seeking an exciting read, that will keep them spellbound until the novel's final resolution. This book, and the lessons it conveys about ethics, morality, and the corrupting power of money, will change the way you think about the world of finance and many of the participants in that world.
**************
This book review is part of the The Analyst by P.T. Dawkins – NURTURE Book Tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment