Wall Streeters on summer vacation can still get their daily fix of investment banking, trading and hedge funds, while escaping to the Hamptons.  Former Bank of America banker-turned-writer David Lender has written "Bull Street," a spicy mix of fact and fiction that follows a young associate at an investment firm. According to a NYTimes review, young financier 'Richard Blum', through no fault of his own, is ensnared in an insider trading ring and must spend the rest of the novel evading both the SEC and rogues inside his firm.  [C-I Note:  Is reviewer, Kevin Roose, referring to Compliance Officers?] 

In the age of Bernie Madoff and the Galleon Group, when “expert networks” and “front-runners” are becoming household terms, it’s no longer enough to get the product placement right.  The financial details are important, too.  Three recent thrillers - including Mr. Lender's novel - present the seedy underbelly of finance with Wall Street minutiae that only former financiers can conjure up.  “Bull Street” supposedly provids plenty of gunshots and chase scenes to ratchet up the suspense - it’s Michael Lewis meets Michael Bay.

By contrast, H.T. Narea’s novel, “The Fund,” contains more geopolitical villainy than boardroom jousting. It features Kate Molares, a laid-off Bear Stearns trader turned government intelligence expert who uses her financial expertise to track down a network of criminal moneymen. Mr. Narea, a former MD and principal at JPMorgan Chase, reportedly gives his readers a sprawling book with bailout-size stakes: bomb plots, biological terrorism and attacks on the Federal Reserve of the literal, rather than the Ron Paul, variety.

Finally, there's Norb Vonnegut’s “The Gods of Greenwich,” set in Connecticut, that follows a down-and-out hedge fund veteran who lands at Leeser Capital, a shady fund run by a man “who made Enron’s execs look like saints.”  Mr. Vonnegut’s novel rings the truest of the three and is certainly the biggest name-dropper, with Amaranth Advisors, Long-Term Capital Management, AQR, Tudor, Bridgewater Associates and other members of the hedge fund pantheon making cameos.

For further details, go to:   [NYT Dealbook, 7/11/11, "In Wall St. Novels.."]