Review of financial political thriller, "Undermoney," by Jay Newman. 

I enjoyed reading Undermoney by Jay Newman. The book was interesting, the theme was contemporary and compelling, the characters and dialogue were good, the plot moved along well.

The genre of Undermoney is geopolitical thriller and it involves high level politics, high level finance, money laundering, hedge funds, international espionage, competition between the United States and Russia, The encroachment of NATO eastward towards the Russian border, and includes a guest appearance by Russian President Vladimir Putin. What else could you want?  Little bit of something for everybody. Meaningless violence, gratuitous sex, obscure motives, pettiness, vanity, raw political ambition, greed, avarice, misplaced sense of purpose, individuals with no sense of purpose, morals or accountability.  A  little bit of something for everyone.

There's a lot of interesting backfill, exposition, dialogue, innermost thoughts, explanatory background, all of which is deliciously interesting if you like clever multi-dimensional literature. If that's not for you, then choose one of the many popular writers who have overwritten many times their  worth, and now publish using ghost editors or secondary editors.

Other reviews of this book complain that it was too long, that it could have benefited from major editing.... I think that this criticism is only warranted if short, to the point, easily finished, not complex plot and characters are appreciated above all. Taken from my standpoint as a reader and also as an fiction  author (The Surrogate, Vera Mortina, Her Charm Was Contagious, Bloodbird, all on Amazon and Kindle under the writer's name Dimitri Markov) it is commendable that this author put in so much effort, time to detail and plot, and developed an interesting background and supportive information and backfill. It's hard to be critical of an author, unless you've done it. Otherwise, it's easy to criticize, just open season and not much else, IMO. You are all adults, put on your big person pants and just read this entertaining book. I am confident you can handle it. As an audible version, it's perfect for long walks, jogging, at the gym, air travel or cruise.

Given that many of the other  reviews centered around the book's length, one wonders whether novels such as Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Exodus, Sapiens, Atlas Shrugged, Grapes of Wrath are also not acceptable because of their lengths. Let he who is innocent cast the first stone.

One last thing I will add is that I did find the ending unsatisfactory, rushed, too simplistic, a little confusing and not helpful to understanding the entire book.