Hedge Funds: Golden Opportunity or Gilded Deception?

Todd Buchholz's The Castro Gene exposes the dangerous world of hedge funds.

Ipswich, MA (PRWEB) May 3, 2007 -- Hedge funds may be hailed as a "can't-miss money-making machine for the 21st century," but Todd Buchholz reveals just how perilous these secretive investment pools for the rich can be in his new financial thriller, The Castro Gene (Oceanview Publishing; May 15, 2007). At a time when millions of investors are fighting to get into hedge funds, the plot that unfolds in The Castro Gene unveils the deception -- and ultimately, the disaster -- that these investments can bring.

Since 2000, the number of hedge funds has more than tripled to over 13,000, and the assets managed by these funds have nearly quadrupled, totaling over $1.4 trillion, reported Red Herring on February 27, 2007. Yet despite their popularity and supposed "can't-miss" returns, many are posting negative returns. Policymakers worry that a major hedge fund failure could topple the stability of the global banks that lend to them, creating chaos in major financial markets, reported the International Herald Tribune on February 10, 2007.

As a former managing director of the legendary Tiger hedge fund and adviser to the flagship fund of George Soros, Buchholz has pulled the levers of power in the tantalizing yet treacherous game of hedge fund finance. The Castro Gene, his fiction debut, sweeps readers into the secretive and free-wheeling world of hedge funds, along with the explosive politics of Fidel Castro's Havana and Washington, D.C.

The Castro Gene also unmasks the hidden secrets of Vegas's Rat Pack days and reveals the most astonishing theory of the Kennedy assassination to burst forth in 40 years. This jet-propelled thriller features a young boxer-turned-Wall Street hotshot who learns how money moguls can manipulate the stock market. Readers will learn many lessons alongside protagonist Luke Braden. First, the risk of listening to tips on CNBC and Bloomberg News, as Luke discovers after being forced by his boss to lie to a TV interviewer. Likewise, Luke realizes that his hedge fund guru, Paul Tremont, has announced a takeover purely to nab a quick billion by temporarily driving up a stock price. And then -- most frightening -- Luke realizes that when the stakes are high enough, his boss will turn finance ministers into pawns and presidents into targets of murder. Can Luke pull the plug on Tremont's plot without getting himself and his family killed?

Todd Buchholz is a former White House director of economic policy, award-winning teacher at Harvard, and managing director of the $15 billion Tiger hedge fund. He has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Reader's Digest. He is the author of New Ideas from Dead Economists, From Here to Economy, Market Shock, and Bringing the Jobs Home. Successful Meetings Magazine named Buchholz one of the "twenty-one top speakers for the twenty-first century," and he is a frequent CNBC guest host. He is a co-producer of the Broadway smash "Jersey Boys" and holds several engineering and design patents. Buchholz is co-founder and currently serves as managing director of the Two Oceans Fund.

In May 2007, Buchholz performs a publishing "hat trick," with simultaneous releases of his debut novel, The Castro Gene, New Ideas from Dead CEOs (HarperCollins), his latest nonfiction release, and a completely revised edition of New Ideas from Dead Economists (Penguin), which was named a classic by the American Economic Association.

The Castro Gene will be available in better bookstores nationwide on May 15, 2007. Oceanview Publishing (www.oceanviewpub.com) is an independent publisher headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

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