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A recent long-haul flight gave me the opportunity to whiz through a little book called "A Killing On Wall Street - An Investment Mystery", by Derrick Niederman. Many might say investment is a mystery enough in itself. This book is actually a combination of murder mystery and a crash course in basic investing concepts. That's an odd combination, you might think. I'd have to agree, but the end result turns out to be lot less cheesy than you might imagine.
As the title of the book suggests the focus of this book is on the basics of investing in the US. Many of the points are still relevant to us here in the UK. And let's face it, "A Killing on Throgmorton Street" doesn't really have the same pulling power.
The story revolves around Cliff Cavanaugh, a private detective hired to investigate a murder of a fund manager at a firm where he used to work. As the plot develops clues are presented in the form of financial puzzles. The private eye unravels the clue for his assistant, explaining a little nugget about the workings of the stock market in the process.
It's all cleverly done but the main problem for the reader is that the financial nuggets are rather unstructured. The first one concerns options, a strange introduction point for a novice investor, and then we move along to areas like share splits. By the end of the book the reader has just a few patches of explanations here and there rather than the entire quilt.
Many readers may find the book's explanations of Wall Street's habits more useful. The author doesn't shy away from exposing some of the industry's sharper tactics although it does take the laid back approach of accepting them as "just the way we do things round here" rather than challenging them directly.
There are also some neat illustrations of how long-term investing tends to benefit the majority of people, with a cantankerous old lady who invested in PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) back in 1939. The book also has a sideswipe at Internet stocks with the recent problems of Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN).
There is also a fictional Internet business -- at least I hope it's fictional -- with a business model so awful that it has to read just to be believed. I won't spoil your enjoyment by revealing it here. It's the situation surrounding the flotation of this company that leads to the murder of the fund manager.
Overall at just 200 pages it's a quick, easy and reasonably entertaining read. It's Foolish in many respects with a lot of common sense points. However, just whom it will appeal to is a little less clear. Some base knowledge, especially of US companies, is required to make the most of what the book has to offer. And if you've got that you are probably not going to need the educational aspects of the book.
Ratings (out of five Jester's caps):
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Where Next?
• A Killing on Wall Street
Other book reviews
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street
• The Millionaire Next Door
• The Warren Buffet Portfolio
• Books Foolish and Financial discussion board