Blown - by Mark Haskell Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Biting satire and criminal mischief abound in Mark Haskell Smith's new novel that follows a Wall Street trader who disappears--with millions in stolen cash--and the madcap team of investigators on his trail in the Cayman Islands in this hot, hilarious case of offshore banking gone awry

Book Synopsis

Hailed as "the slightly more well-adjusted offspring of Hunter S. Thompson and James Ellroy" (Los Angeles Times), Mark Haskell Smith returns with a wildly entertaining satire of corporate greed, sexual desire, and crime in the global financial services industry.

Bryan LeBlanc worked his way up into a plum position on Wall Street as the boy genius of the foreign exchange desk. Surrounded by acolytes of the free market, the true believers, the U.S. Marines of capitalism--"the few, the proud, the completely full of themselves"--Bryan soon realizes that being honest at a dishonest job is not the path to success. He decides to give Wall Street a taste of its own medicine and hatches an intricate plan to disappear permanently with just enough misappropriated money--and sailing classes--to spend his golden years cruising the Caribbean.

Bryan quickly learns that being a criminal, even a really smart one, is more complicated than he thought. He finds himself on the run in the Cayman Islands, wanted for murder. On his trail is an irresponsible team of investigators sent by his Wall Street firm, hellbent on reclaiming the millions before their clients notice its missing: his boss, Seo-yun Kim, who's committed to not only clearing her name but escaping her suffocating fiancé and their pending nuptials; the investment bank's collections agent, Neal Nathanson, depressed over a recent break-up with his boyfriend; and an ex-cop from Curaçao, Piet Room, who has traded in his badge for spouse spying as a private investigator. Their efforts are complicated by an Australian sailor begrudgingly circumnavigating the globe to fundraise for breast cancer awareness.

Wickedly funny, ribald, and sharp-eyed, BLOWN starts as a simple case of embezzlement and explodes into a fatal high-stakes gamble for money and the pursuit of happiness.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR BLOWN

"Another compulsively readable blend of satire, crime fiction motifs, and the occasional quirky, violent interlude in a tale that will satisfy [Smith's] current fans and attract new ones." -Booklist

"Darkly amusing...[Smith] has a fine-tuned ear for witty repartee and a skill for embroiling even his most comically conceived characters in dramas that steer his plot through unpredictable twists and into unforeseeable outcomes. This is a surprising, memorable novel." --Publisher's Weekly

"Smith works out the mechanics of his heist beautifully...Another madcap crime caper, one with a little temper and a dirty mind." --Kirkus Reviews

"I'm a big fan of Mark Haskell Smith's novels and Blown is his best yet: funny and frisky, with unforgettable characters and a surprising, twisty plot that willkeep you up way past your bedtime. Beyond all the fun and the ribald jokes is a wise portrayal of capitalism's dehumanizing effects. A terrific novel." --Edan Lepucki, author of Woman No. 17

"If you haven't been reading Mark Haskell Smith, get your sh*t together. Start with Blown, which is a blast. It's a gripping, hilarious, wild ride of a book. I loved it." --Lisa Lutz, author of The Passenger

"Sexy, funny, and surprising, Blown moves fast and is a lot of fun. Mark Haskell Smith is a writer whose books I am always grateful to have read." --Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

"Blown is a riotously funny, perfectly observed, and maddeningly engaging roller coaster that tears through a world dominated by greed, cunning, sex, and the extraordinary and ludicrous measures people will go to in order to be happy. Mark Haskell Smith takes you on a wild ride you won't dare get off until the very end." --Ivy Pochoda, author of Wonder Valley

"Engrossing...a page turner in the best sense of the term." --The Arts Fuse PRAISE FOR RAW: A LOVE STORY

"Gleefully absurd . . . [Smith] turns what could have been just an amusing book into an incisive, caustic and hilarious one . . . He's able to pull it off because his prose is so hard-boiled and self-assured." --Los Angeles Times

"Audacious satire." --Vanity Fair

"Both hilarious and absurd. You'll laugh (and sometimes blush) the whole way through." --People

"Outrageous . . . consistently surprising, fast-paced and nearly always funny." --Daily Beast

"Amusing and intermittently outright funny . . . [Smith's] caricatures land squarely on the mark." --Boston Globe

"Dark, priapic satire." --The Millions

"[A] brash and brainy slice of satire that skewers our base and high-minded interests in one fell swoop . . . Hilarious." --Shelf Awareness

PRAISE FOR MARK HASKELL SMITH

"Smith has a knack for winningly blending James Ellroy blunt violence with Elmore Leonard deadpan wit . . . [and] the gimlet-eyed barbed satire of Terry Southern." --Baltimore City Paper

"The man can tell a story, oh, yes, indeed." --T. C. Boyle

"Smith is mordantly funny." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Like Carl Hiaasen's oversexed cousin . . . [Smith] excels at cooking up a supremely weird atmosphere and spicing it up with equally weird sex and violence." --Booklist

About the Author

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of five novels, including Raw: A Love Story and Salty (which was adapted into a major motion picture called Gun Shy), as well as the nonfiction books Naked at Lunch and Heart of Dankness. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Vulture. He lives in Los Angeles.