The Street Gamble

John S. Goscinski THE STREET GAMBLE

Hal Sweeny is streetwise as he is educated and has a passion for taking risks. His biggest risk is walking away from the only life he’d ever known and marrying out of his social class. But when he hires on with Hkg Securities the prestigious New York Investment Banking firm owned by his father-in-law, with whom he has an irreversible strained relationship, he raises the stakes to a whole new level. One morning, three years into his newfangled life, he finds himself demonized by the same cast of characters who make a business out of destroying other people’s wealth. Embroiled in a world of trickery and deceit, overflowing with consummate liars and at odds with his own moral conscience, Hal must reach deep within himself to overcome his abiding sense of guilt, and outwit a den of thieves where the stakes are higher than he ever bargained for.

It’s the fall of 2002 and a bear market is raging out of control. Beckman Corporation, at the direction of its Investment advisor Hkg Securities is running a Street gamble, which it thinks it can win. But Hal Sweeny uncovers their game and must choose between family and career or standing up to the pervasive corruption on Wall Street, gone unchecked with relative impunity for many years. With the help of his assistant Mary, Hal unweaves a web of corporate malfeasance, spanning the far reaches of East Asia and the Caribbean and ending up on the gaming tables of Las Vegas.

Besides telling a capricious story of how stock holder equity is lured away in pursuit of internet gaming riches, The Street Gamble does a masterful job drawing sleek comparisons between the risks investors face on Wall Street, everyday and those taken by gamblers pressing their luck at the brick and mortar casinos around the world. It also takes a well deserved critical look at some of Wall Street’s despicable behavior that preceded the last bear market and the fraudulent wealth it helped create.