As previous reviewers have mentioned, the construction of the book is odd ' each chapter is divided into three parts, each following a different story line. Each is very intriguing on its own and, until the end, these lines seemingly have little to do with each other. While it can be maddening trying to find a common thread and hard not to just skip ahead to figure it all out, the scenes that Banks sets up are irresistible.

It's difficult not to like this book, or at the very least be intrigued. Unfortunately its difficult to find in the United States but easy to order from the Amazon UK site. And well worth the extra shipping costs.

While the book certainly delivers an informative account of Security Pacific's rise and eventual merger with Bank of America, it also offers the perspective of one of the deal's main decision makers. Instead of the 'Monday Morning Quarterback' approach of most business retrospectives, Smith offers the reader the opportunity to understand all of the factors which influenced this mega-merger and the eventual aftermath.

I'd recommend this book to anyone involved in the financial services industry or considering a career in finance.

In my estimation Chairman Smith has little to gain and much to lose by writing this book; it is the type of book a CEO never writes. A CEO is supposed to go off quiety to his corner with his golden parachute and never be heard from again. The style and fecundity of the writing is evidence of how important it was to Smith to relate this story and engage readers without condescension. The prose is vital but comprehensible. Any literate individual will immediately understand the momentous issues at stake. Smith manages to find humor in unlikely places. I have read a number of CEO manuscripts that never made the cut to published works and I can attest not only to the fact that Smith is an unusually adept author, but how rare indeed it is for an executive to be able to express himself in words to the degree that they provoke a heartfelt emotional response in the reader. I applaud the writing of this book and hope that it inspires other high level executives to speak the unspeakable.

So imagine Black's rude surprise when he arrives in Basel, Switzerland for one of the BIS's regular monthly meetings. Instead of the warm welcome he had been receiving for the past four years as a Fed chief, he is arrested, jailed, and charged with using his exclusive knowledge of U.S. interest-rate moves to mastermind the most audacious insider-trading scheme ever.

Intrigued yet?

As the conspiracy begins to unfold, Black finds himself no more than a fall guy for a shadowy Sardinian financier, a conniving Swiss lawyer with a desk full of secret bank accounts, and the real inside trader--a corrupt president of the Swiss National Bank. In this mix of characters lies the potential for a Hitchcockian drama of a victim mixing it up with his tormentors as he tries to clear his name. The Set-Up journeys from San Francisco and Washington to Switzerland, Sardinia, and the wilds of Alaska, where the plot against Black falls apart.

On the good side, Erdman keeps things moving with his descriptions of shady Swiss dealings, and prison life. Big Swiss heads come off as men of impeccable social standing but a flexible moral character. That's an all-too-common shortcoming among the Swiss big-money set that Erdman seems to have studied closely during his life as a doctoral student and banker in Basel.

But this is also my minor grouse with the book that is supposed to be more of a thriller than a treatise on global finance. Expect a fair bit of digressions into the minutiae of international banking including an introduction to the innards of derivatives markets. Which was great for me personally, but these are in fact slightly piquing in terms of the novel's flow.

Nonetheless this is all worth the ride if you are in the market for a financially inclined thriller. Recommended.

Reading this book during the current international crisis, I was stuck by how much the U.S. suffers at the hands of the reactionaries who have taken control of the Republican Party and now the country. The book reminds people of a time when some/most Republican's were moderate, sophisticated internationalists with a pro-business slant. Sadly the Rockefeller political tradition has been all but extinguished by religious zealots, ignorant demagogues, radical Zionists and thinly veiled bigots. Tomorrow's leaders reading this book will surely see the value in adopting a reasoned approach to difficult issues.

The book reads as easily as a warm conversation between friends. You'll find yourself engaged throughout, from topics about WWII, the world of high finance, the extraordinary world of top-level diplomacy and the intrincacies and complexities of being involved with the great New York City.

But most of all, you will learn (or relearn) that great wealth is not what makes a great man, but great character. As others, David Rockefeller could have followed the easy life of the "junior". He choose to live instead one of the most accomplished and interesting lives of the century.

If you learn well through anecdotes, you will find this book both informative and easy to read. If, on the other hand, you are considering this book thinking it will be information about the modern banking industry given in a straightforward way, you're out of luck. In order to understand the industry (or what pieces of it this book explores, anyway) you have to extrapolate larger themes from nearly 500 pages of amost exclusively history and anecdotal examples. In addition, Martin has a habit of describing people in the industry, e.g., "Mr. X, a swarthy fellow I knew while still a fencer at Penn and something of a womanizer besides..." For some, I'm sure this keeps the book from being too dry. I, on the other hand, found these descriptions annoying and diversionary.

In sum, if you're looking for information about the modern banking industry, just read chapters nine and ten, which are well-written, relatively complete, and exceptionally easy to understand. If, instead, you are looking for the story of how banking has evolved, or you just like to read businessmen's tales, then this is the book for you.

Twenty years later the new edition of this book reads like a a new book even to those readers who have read previous editions. So much new material has been added one scarcely finds any familiarity with prior edtions of the book. This is a sign of the immense changes that have occurred in the economy of the nation and the world over the last twenty years. In this respect a new edition of the book was long over due.

Mayer's writing style is such that it draws the reader into a complex subject and walks you around briefly until the reader is familiar with the jargon and then leads you to his particular point easily. In this way the new edition retains all the original value of the prior editions as a primer on banking procedures for a wide audience of readers.

Nonetheless, there were times during the reading of the new edition that this author wished we could have spent more time on particular subjects to thoroughly answer all questions on that subject before moving on to the next topic. This author is still looking for a more comprehensive explanation of the role of cash cards and ATMs in the economy as a whole. Perhaps we will have to wait until the next editions of this book to be published.

Brian W.Wells
Attorney at Law
Charleston, West Virginia

He provides every kind of background and history needed to be well-informed about what happened. Some of the data provided include familial history of Yehiyyah Ayash "The Engineer," the political infighting among Israeli governmental agencies how to combat Ayash, details of operations against terrorism by the Sayeret Matkal, how the attacks effected the Israeli public (both Jewish-Israelis and Arab-Israelis no matter what their faith), and other background.

With the tight security precautions that Israelis show, don't expect too many details about what happened that aren't widespread public knowledge already. Katz does detail how many of the bombs were made from easily purchasable materials, but not in so much detail that bombs will be made using the information from this novel. It's definitely tamer than the "Anarchist Cookbook" if you get my drift. Some of what can be done with a cell phone was fascinating....

I recommend the book for anyone wanting to know more how terrorism can affect international politics and a society. This book could be especially useful in light of the 9-11 terrorist attack on the USA. The Israeli's history can be a sort of testbed for other nations that will soon have to deal with continual attacks from terrorist organizations.

Don't read this book if you want an in-depth study of Palestinian-Arab society. He does talk about some factors involved in producing Genocide-bombers, but I wouldn't call the book friendly to Palestinian-Arab interests in any way, shape, or form. Katz simply isn't an apologist for terrorists. At the same time, I detect a sympathy for the suffering Palestinian-Arab people.

If you are looking for good books about Israeli spies, try "Every Spy a Prince" by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman or "Soldier Spies" also by Samuel Katz.

End Impression: "The Hunt for the Engineer" is a great book if you know what you're looking for. If what your looking for is an insightful look at terrorism and how to combat it, this is a great read!

I like the ditzy, screwball heroine. I like her patient husband and her cranky mare, Plum. You can almost smell the horses, and the descriptions of their movement and bearing bring them right into focus.

Maybe not the best horse novel ever written, but excellent reading when you're soaking in a bubble bath after a ride on a cold day!

Nika is a great character, too, and at first you think she is a really huge brat, until you read along and begin to realize that Nika might not be what she seems.

So, this book takes you along a path of people, places, and a certain amount of danger. I loved it, and think both the horse lover or non-horse lover will enjoy it as much as I did.

For non-horsey people, the author does a really good job of welcoming the reader into the sport, explaining things along the way.

I particularly liked the "villian" in this novel. It was a bit too easy to put a face to the character and to imagine more details than were written. :-)

I'll have to get Carolyn Banks other books now, as this one was quite good!

"Whit" is (as of early 1997) the most recent "straight" fiction novel of Iain Banks (who also writes science fiction under the transparent pseudonym Iain M. Banks). Many of Banks' books contain violent undertones- or overtones- but "Whit" is an exception: a first person narrative of "Isis", a key member of a small Scottish religious cult.

The story concerns Isis' travels in the "ordinary world" (present day), seeking to recover a lost member of the flock. Along the way, Banks cleverly reveals the beliefs and history of the cult, inevitably leading to dark secrets which will challenge Isis' faith.

I suspect that Iain Banks' popularity is mainly confined to Britain. This book, along with "The Crow Road", is a good place to start with his writing. Isis' story combines good writing, a well thought out narrative within a mystery framework, and an interesting point of view: although many cult beliefs border on ludicrous, Isis' beliefs are not only genuine but well considered. Hers is not a blind faith. Highly recommended.

Banks has described himself as an "evangelical atheist", and is famous for dark and awesome plotting. We might expect an apocalyptic cult and gruesome secrets.

They're not here, and I think the restraint makes the book much better than going for outright shock. (If you want Aum Shinrikyo or Heaven's Gate you know where to get it.) This is a much more gentle and sympathetic look at the beliefs and life of a person as ordinary and extraordinary as any other.

It is perhaps not Banks's best, but it's still very good. If you liked his Culture books but are afraid the "straight" non-sf books might be too dark then this could be a good place to start.