Gerry Doyle: August 2009 Archives

Norb Vonnegut made a career working with numbers. But it was the words that intrigued him--even in such everyday tasks as business correspondence.

"I wrote letters to all our clients about my team's asset management decisions, why we sold this stock or bought that one," he said. "I liked the wordplay but preferred to tell stories about people rather than cash flow, liquidity ratios, et cetera."

The result, after decades in the financial industry, is Top Producer, due out in September from Minotaur. The thriller pits stockbroker Grove O'Rourke against, it seems, the world. As he tries to track down a colleague's missing money after his sudden and spectacular death, O'Rourke finds only trouble. And he may pay for his investigation with his life.

Wall Street, Vonnegut said, is a perfectly appropriate place for a bit of murder and mayhem.

"My characters are composites from Wall Street, 100 percent fiction and really driven," he said. "It seemed natural for their lives to spiral out of control, for overwhelming forces including a little murder to take over."