The word I bet you will hear used a lot to describe Eric Barnes debut novel Shimmer is “timely.” With the sentencing of Bernie Madoff, and the general climate of the economy in the aftermath of the financial crisis, this seems like the perfect time for a thriller about a high tech mega-corporation that is really a giant ponzi scheme.
Here is the publisher’s blurb to give you a feel for the plot:
In just three years, CEO Robbie Case has grown Core Communications, a data technology company, from 30 people to over 5,000. Now a $20 billion company made legendary by its sudden success, Core is based on a technology no other company can come close to copying, a revolutionary breakthrough known as drawing blood from a mainframe. And Robbie, its 35-year-old CEO, is acclaimed worldwide for his vision, leadership and wealth. Except that all of it is based on a lie. The technology doesn t work, the finances are built on a Ponzi scheme of stock sales and shell corporations, and Robbie is struggling to keep the company alive, to protect the friends who work for him and all that they ve built. Each day, Robbie tries to push the catastrophe back a little further, while his employees believe that they are all moving closer to grace, the day their stock options vest, when they will be made rich for their faith and loyalty and hard work.
In essence what Barnes has attempted is to get inside the mind of high tech con man. What type of person does this sort of thing? What would it be like to be at the center of such a scheme? Robbie Case is his attempt at flushing this out; an answer in the form of a character.
I found Shimmer to be unlike almost any other book I have read. It was interesting and entertaining but there was something about it that didn’t quite click.
