Money Laundering Books

After 120 pages of drivel that should have taken no more than 20 pages, I gave up. Fact: Alec Donzi can't write and would have failed a creative writing course offered in high school. He seemed most interested in filling pages than in building a plot. One chapter seemed entirely devoted to the virtues of Austrian pumpkin seed oil (I couldn't have made this up). Another to what laptop he needed to buy to write the tripe that he managed to get published. On that point and that only he gives us all hope that we too can be in print.

Sadly I will have to agree with the other reviewers on the editing. In the beginning I thought it wasn't so bad, but then it really got deplorable. I really really wanted to like the book. It started off well, and the premise and story was original. As was, the style. But in the end it fell flat and I rushed myself just to finish the book (I skipped and skimmed pages). It felt rushed.

The idea of North Korea was intriguing considering the current situation, and there was a some good elements to the book.

In the end, I think the writer has potential. But obviously going from journalism to fiction writing is not a simple step.

And a real need for a real editor would help.

One thing is for sure, you either love this book or you hate it. I love it because of its unique insight. I know it's supposed to be a novel, but this book reads more like an investigative report, although the author borrows heavily from the fiction genre. What's amazing to me is the fact that this book was published in late 2000 and the author probably conceived the idea and wrote the book a few years earlier, and the results would normally qualify as a prophecy as Donzi wrote history before it actually happened. Right now we're seeing much of the content or at least the general premise and various situations fulfilled before our eyes. Nevertheless, Donzi's style is predominantly one of an investigative journalist and that takes time to get used to, but it's a work of suspense and a very interesting subject matter. I'm looking forward to the movie release, if that is in the works as the storyline in The Consultant is great film material; it would make a great action thriller.

There aren't too many novels or books for this matter that deal with the very serious and realistic danger of the nuclear threat from North Korea. But THE CONSULTANT by Donzi does and amazingly he puts hard facts into this fast-paced fictionalized account. At the same time we learn about the ethics of corporate America where undeniably greed is the dominating factor. This novel is an exciting read and is full of exotic locales (from Naples, Florida to the Far East, to Europe incl. Paris, France and through Bermuda). And the action never stops.

I devoured my copy of the "The Consultant" within 48 hours. Every decade or so, there comes along a book that you just have to read as it introduces us to a new era of storytelling. I still remember Grisham's "The Firm" back in '91 which was such a memorable book, and now there's Alec Donzi's "The Consultant." This novel is everything a new-millennium thriller is supposed to be and more. Aside from the action and the twists and turns, Donzi communicates valuable information about the reality of the nuclear threat in the Far East, and this authenticates the book. As a former investigative journalist, Donzi has researched his subject well and it shows. I also found the characterizations very well done. The story about a wealthy corporate consultant who gets involved in his last big deal moves like a hurricane through 76 chapters. Along the way, Jerome Birchner, the consultant, encounters high-level terrorists, a renegade CIA agent and a seductive female executive. Readers get a behind-the-scenes look of how Corporate America really works and how shaky world peace really is--it's scary to say the least. The settings of this novel include Naples, South Florida, Dallas, North Korea and Europe (Vienna, Zurich and Paris), as well as Washington. Fact is, I'll take my time to read this book next weekend again. "The Consultant" is a rich and engaging story and I know it is one of these rare books most avid readers will truly enjoy.

This story has it all. The good guys all wear white and the bad guys are smeared in black. The reader is taken on a cleverly woven journey through the global financial system and the U.S. political system. Unfortunately, the financial plot becomes the story, and the characters all take a back seat to its development. As with so many other stories all of the drama unfolds in the final chapter alone. We never get to really identify with any of the main characters

The book is mostly a turgid recitation of various international agreements about combatting money laundering. Describing cases like how to cope with dealers in high value goods (like expensive paintings), where there might be traffic in these. More pertinent perhaps is a discussion about internet banking. The faceless and often international nature of this can greatly aid anonymous transactions. Along with this is a recognition that parallel remittance schemes have arisen for various reasons.

Maybe the prospects for detecting laundering of proceeds from narcotics are more useful than for finding terrorist financing. The monies needed for the latter are much less. As demonstrated by the 2001 terrorists, who spent around $1 million in the US. Also, if terrorists can find funds from legitimate sources, then this also complicates detection. Whereas in narcotics, the source of funds is itself illegal.

I expected to see in this book an explanation on the most prevalent schemes of laundering. Instead it dedicated most of the book to describe what is happening in different countries of the world in terms of laws and law enforcement. This information is not what the title and the subtitle promise. The information presented could be gathered from different sources over the internet but most importantly such information can become obsolete in no time (the book is published in 1998). The best thing about this book is its title but unfortunately it did not meet my expectations at all.

In this 199 page book only two and one-half pages are dedicated to how money is laundered and that's the art and science. Over 130 pages are dedicated to a country-by-country risk analysis and this information is easily available from a number of sources on the internet. If that is what you want, then this is a great book. If you really want to know money laundering techniques and practices then look elsewhere.

The number of missing details or oversight was frustrating. For example, page 1 of the book starts with "placement", which is interesting, but if you are new to anti-corruption or fraud investigation then it would be nice to know that placement is only the first step in money laundering. By the way, the other steps are layering and integration.

I recommend Peter Lilley's book "Dirty Dealing" as a better introduction to money laundering.

I was expecting less details on names, dates, who-knows-who and who-did-what and more on the financial implications and banking wrongdoings of the whole case. This book is too full of details that do not really matter much and fails to address the big picture that its title leads us to beleive on. It goes on and on talking about the relationships between Russian mobs and BofNY officers and forget to mention where this money was coming from and going to (and if it did, you get so distracted with the unimportant details that you can actually miss it). I am still looking for a good money laundering book.

The information is interesting, yet the book is very difficult to read. Any captive audience for this book is probably limited to those who have lived on North Carolina's Outer Banks; around Elizabeth City; and know some or all of the characters. Anyone else will likely lose interest early on due to the cumbersome presentation.

I was constantly distracted by bad punctuation, bad grammar and bad formatting. The book jumps between first person and third person. Apparently the publisher, AuthorHouse™, merely provided basic printing facilities without editorial expertise.