Pounce: Cochon's Billions

Move over, Wealthy Barber! Here comes the Rich and Randy Butcher to lead investors through the next stages! Tom Morison's Pounce: Cochon's Billions is a satirical novel that pokes fun at the hidden world of high finance. A humorous warning to those who are tempted by the allure of quick wealth, the story exposes the slick sales pitches, the hype, and the false promises of the financial industry. With a strong sense of the ridiculous, Pounce lampoons money managers who have forgotten the true nature of their trade and chaffs the uninitiated who dream of outfoxing the pros. The novel's hero, Harry Cochon, is a quiet, unobtrusive country butcher until he wins the lottery and suddenly finds himself seduced by grand fancies that have never before crossed his mind. An innocent in the world of Machiavellian stratagems, Harry sets out naively to become a financial tycoon. En route, he encounters a motley cast of characters, including his mentors--Lord Mewe, sophisticated aristocrat and rising star in the heart of the City, London's financial district; and John Maise, the big, brash American, equally at home in Iowa corn fields and New York penthouse board rooms. Under their tutelage, Harry is swept along to the offices and fiefdoms of insiders. In London, he meets such wheeler-dealers as Alice Blondwyn, a monetary economist who is seldom right in her prognostications but always cool and haughty in her revisions; Mary Pnu, an inscrutable half-western oriental who delivers an impeccable synergistic logic; Alvin Greenfinger, alias Reginald Ross, the pompous ass who affects accents and embroiders a fictitious past in order to emulate his idols, the English aristocracy; and HopeGoldbricker, who lures Harry to bed and into financial intrigue. In New York, Harry comes face to face with Bobby Bonds, titan of finance, a staggeringly powerful man with a loud voice, elevator shoes, and a stable of nubile young secretaries hanging on his every word. Harry also meets such oddities as Randy Walker, a former barker with Royal American Shows; Edel Fineline, with his visceral response to the markets; and Old Bill, with his lovely big red nose, his appreciation of the liquid lunch, and his good sense and honesty. And in the corridors of the fast-paced investment world, Harry meets beautiful, sexy, and calculating Mitsy--and discovers that seduction can take many forms. Pounce puts much of money management in its true perspective of guesswork, emotional ridiculousness, self-interest, even mysticism... It should be required reading for every broker, money manager, investment advisor, CFA or MBA candidate and, above all, corporate executives of publicly-traded companies.