Description: At once a painful coming-of-age novel, an exciting amateur sleuth tale and an intriguing narrative involving social issues (immigration and wealth disparity), Money Matters features Jenny, the 27-year-old inexperienced protagonist, who, is forced to take on financial tycoons, corrupt politicians and the treacherous Baja drug cartel.
Brief description: Brian Finney is a writer and Professor Emeritus of Literature at California State University, Long Beach. Educated in England, he obtained a BA from the University of Reading and a PhD from the University of London. After serving three years as an officer in the Royal Air Force, he spent five years in industry as an internal management consultant and production control manager. Between 1964-1987 he taught and arranged extra-mural courses for the University of London. Since immigrating to the US in 1987 he has taught at the University of California, Riverside, University of Southern California, UCLA, and California State University, Long Beach. He is married and lives in Venice, California.
Review Quotes:
Money Matters, Brian Finney's sensational new novel of manners and mystery charts the social and political complexities of contemporary Southern California with a superb ear for dialogue and an experienced satirist's honed blade. The novel follows Jenny, an irresistible, funny and accidental detective as she finds herself unraveling the unexplained disappearance of a young woman she admires. As we follow her through a riveting mélange of political intrigue, drug cartels, immigration activism and the recurring umbrella of Total Surveillance--the company for which she briefly works--the darkness underlying the sun-drenched facades of Los Angeles begins to grow visible, and that darkness looks exactly like money. Don't miss this gripping and powerful novel of figures just like your own friends, all of them facing a culture's--and our own--shifting fault lines. --- David St. John, award-winning author of The World's Body
In this timely immigration story taking place in West Los Angeles, Money Matters is a story about two sisters, Tricia and Jenny who are conflicted in every way from politics to money to men. Tricia, the controlling sister, cannot seem to keep herself from offering Jenny advice in blunt terms, like exclaiming 'get real'. The writing was layered, beautiful and draws an emotional response from the reader, I was in tears at the end and I cannot say enough good things about this novel. It is incredibly smart, current, witty, lively and well-paced. - Aurora Roman, bookseller
Money Matters lets us taste the rich flavor of the many small worlds of Southern California through the adventures of the two highly likable main characters, a white middle-class young woman and an Americanized illegal Mexican young man. Mix in a murder mystery, drug cartels, dirty politics, a Yuppie sister, falling apart parents, and a lot of mouth-watering meals, and I guarantee you'll have a great read. - Dorothy Braudy, artist