Somehow this keeps happening to me this year. The Bezzle is book two in a series and I have not read book one. In this case, I don't think it matters so much. It rather seems like the main character goes on adventures that are mostly self contained. This book snuck into September's reading because my son needed to get a library card for school. While we were there I renewed my card and snooped around in the new books. Before I knew it, I was walking out of the library with a handful of books. I think I'm doomed to be eternally awash in books but at least these eventually have to go back.
I picked up The Bezzle because I'm toying with being a Cory Doctorow fan. I really loved some of his earlier novels such as Little Brother and For the Win. These days, when I see one of his books, I tend to pick it up but many of them are sitting in stacks at home. Because it was a library book, I just dove into this one. I read it over the course of a lazy Saturday.
The main character, Marin Hench, is a forensic accountant with an aversion to a steady job. Instead, he takes contract work to find misappropriated money and he gets a percentage of whatever he locates. He takes the jobs he wants to only from the clients he wants to. Occasionally, he takes a job pro bono because he wants to help. It's not hard to imagine that Marty has seriously annoyed some powerful people over the course of his career and that some of those people are willing to take retribution.
In this story, Marty takes a pro bono case to help the residents of an island resort break up a ponzi scheme that had involved most of the islands full time residents. Doing so earned Marty and his friend the enimity of the local businessman/crime boss.
This reads a little like a crime caper and reminded me strongly of Douglas Coupland and Matt Ruff. Over all, I highly recommend the book. I'm going to back up and find the first book in the trilogy next.
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