Publisher:
N/A

Publication Date:
01/19/2021

Copyright Date:
N/A

ISBN:
9798669972080

Binding:
Paperback

U.S. SRP:
N/A

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CREDENTIALS

By Rand McGreal

IR_Star-black
IR Rating:
3.5
CREDENTIALS, Rand McGreal’s ambitious effort to embed thoughtful macroeconomic monetary policy into digestible, suspense fiction is energetic and well-intentioned in its economics though sometimes uneven as a work of fiction.
CREDENTIALS (Book 3 in the LOST series) is an economics-related suspense novel set at an International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Victoria, British Columbia.

Peter Barrie, an economics professor at Neverland–a junior college in California’s Salinas Valley–may not have the credentials of the esteemed Keynesian economist from Cambridge, Dr. Lee Hooker, but after 20 years, Peter has been offered the opportunity to give the closing speech at the prestigious annual International Monetary Fund meeting in Victoria, British Columbia. Peter, a New Market economist, his publicist Alice and Alice’s six-year-old daughter, Tallis, fly north, only to find a welcome chillier than the October rain. Why do the world’s most prestigious Keynesian economists find Peter’s New Market economics theories so threatening? How far are they willing to go to silence Peter? And why is a mysterious Russian trawler skirting the Canadian coastline?

Rand McGreal’s passionate, articulate economic theory dominates this novel and he guides readers’ understanding of monetary policy, nesting his ideas in a matrix of digestible fiction. He addresses the root causes and intertwining interests related to 2008’s Global Financial Crisis, Taoist thinking and its relationship to economic thought and he makes a clear case for the impact of institutional entrenchment by over-dominant, government-based Keynesian thinking. But where CREDENTIALS is energetic and well-reasoned in its economic theory, it is uneven in its storytelling. McGreal’s choice to embed his thinking in fiction obliges him to attend to storytelling elements such as dialogue, character, pacing and plot. The simple, comic-book-style characterization of the evil Keynesian men—and a few Keynesian women in skintight conference-wear—sits uncomfortably beside the delicacy of the economic thought. An exception here are the characterizations of six-year-old Tallis and Chinese economist Tao Zhugong, which are richer and more interesting, making both of these characters feel more natural. The dialogue, while it furthers the plot, sometimes feels stilted. The pacing is mixed. An action scene in Fan Tan Alley works well, but several other dramatic moments are carefully built only to resolve abruptly and a couple of others are hard to follow. The extended Peter Pan metaphor sometimes feels heavy-handed and risks becoming a distraction from the story, instead of an enhancement to it.

CREDENTIALS, Rand McGreal’s ambitious effort to embed thoughtful macroeconomic monetary policy into digestible, suspense fiction is energetic and well-intentioned in its economics though sometimes uneven as a work of fiction.

~Ellen Graham for IndieReader

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