The Deal
Adam Gittlin
Reviewed by Robert Dugoni
It is rare that I will agree to read a manuscript, and even rarer that I’ll finish it. Not so with Adam Gittlin’s THE DEAL. Gittlin’s second book, soon to be published by Oceanview Publishing, captured my attention from page one and held it to the very last page.
Part BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and part THE GAME, the motion picture starring Michael Douglas, in THE DEAL, Gittlin crafts characters who are often not likeable, but who are believable, and puts those characters into an action packed adventure that causes them to re-evaluate their values and morals.
Gittlin’s main character, Jonah Gray is by all accounts a brilliant, but arrogant, high-rolling commercial real estate broker in the glitter of Manhattan’s billion dollar market. He has been raised for these high stakes games by a father more intent on teaching his son how to make millions while taking advantage of every opportunity and person, than how to foster relationships and find happiness.
As the book opens, Gray is approached by a childhood friend turned wealthy Russian businessman, Andreu Zhamovsky who drops the deal of a lifetime in Gray’s lap. Zhamovsky needs to quickly find an investment in New York Real Estate for half-a-billion dollars in cash. There’s only one catch. The deal must close within three weeks, a seemingly impossible task, for reasons Zhamovsky won’t reveal. To succeed, and capture millions in commissions, Gray goes to work with his team of equally motivated compatriots at Platinum Commercial Building and Land, each looking to put together a separate deal in the hopes that one will play out.
Gittlin, himself well-versed in the Manhattan commercial real estate business, is adept at taking the reader through the high-flying lifestyle to which Gray has become accustomed: Park Avenue penthouses, late night dinners and drinks at Manhattan’s most expensive and exclusive clubs, and parties in the Hamptons with a ready supply of drugs, alcohol, and women. Despite the seeming glitter of the lifestyle, Gittlin is adept at presenting an undercurrent of tension that not all that glitters is gold, and that Gray is heading for a painful crash.
That fall begins when Gray unwittingly becomes the courier for a priceless package, and realizes he has been set-up to be someone’s fall guy. The questions develop rapid-fire from there, as does the action. Through his quest to figure out who is responsible, Gray must come face to face with his own moral convictions and values, and the price for the choices he has made and will make will be exceedingly steep.
Gittlin’s novel is well crafted and well researched. The tension is palpable and the action, once underway, relentless. Gray proves to be much like Mitch McDeere in John Grisham’s novel, THE FIRM. Despite seemingly overwhelming odds, he is able to use his wits, street savvy, and charm to stay one step ahead of all who would seek to kill him as he tries to unravel a web of lies and deceit that began even before he was born. The ultimate question, however, whether Gray will manage to not only stay alive, but to elude law enforcement and make THE DEAL, remains unanswered until the book's final pages. It is definitely worth the adventure to find out.
THE DEAL is one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time.
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About the Reviewer:
Author Robert Dugoni has been writing his entire life. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a degree in journalism and clerked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times before obtaining his doctorate of jurisprudence from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law.
He has practiced as a civil litigator in San Francisco and Seattle for seventeen years. In 1999 he left the full-time practice of law to return to writing. In addition to THE CYANIDE CANARY, he is a two-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. He is represented by Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency in New York and lives with his wife and two children in the Pacific Northwest. Visit his website at www.robertdugoni.com.
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