Panic of '89 (G K Hall Large Print Book Series) - Hardcover

Erdman's cool, incisive style heightens the effects in his new novel, topping The Crash of '79 and his other bestsellers. The hero, Paul Mayer, resembles the author; both are eminent economists and natives of Sweden now living in the U.S. As 1989 looms, Mayer contemplates a grim future, with troubles amassing since the second term of America's "luckiest" President, blameless and unworried during his last days in office. The stock market drops out of sight. Banks are falling like dominoes. Foreign countries default wholesale on huge loans to the U.S. These are among the possibilities Erdman graphically spells out, sending shock waves through the reader. The cast of characters is also strikingly real. International conspirators include Arabs and Venezuelans, a Swiss banker, a motley gang with designs on each other and on the main objective, the Bank of America. As the narrative accelerates, so do the crises that Mayer and a few allies commit themselves to averting. If they succeed, the valiant team will belong in the company of Atlas, Hercules and other doers of the impossible.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Panic details an international plot involving slippery financial maneuvering and terrorism to destroy the American banking system. Worldly bankers, high government officials, international terrorists, and the presidents and oil ministers of three Latin American countries all play parts. So do Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker (chairman of the Federal Reserve Board), Ronald Reagan, and Mikhail Gorbachev. The book's plot is plausible, but barely; its characters are stereotypes. (A terrorist leader boasts that he has "killed about 700 people . . . since 1985.") Erdman never takes his role as prophet too seriously; he simply writes a good story. Panic is similar in its premise to Michael M. Thomas's The Ropespinner Conspiracy (LJ 1/15/87), but it is more fun. David M. Keymer, Dean of Students, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.