Skin in the Game

by R. P. Finch

Overview

Fiction. Worlds that don't touch: a stodgy, mega law firm and an urban strip club, the Mob, the CIA—and a quantum physics lab. Young Eben Burnham, a science buff and shy, first-year lawyer in a cut-throat Wall Street law firm, tries to represent start-up nanotech companies but he doesn't anticipate that any of these worlds will come into play: that his first client's quantum-physics product will have revolutionary secret code-breaking abilities of interest to both the CIA and the Mob.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604891089
Publisher:	Livingston Press
Publication date:	04/10/2013
Pages:	329
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

R. P. Finch has written SKIN IN THE GAME from the vantage point of personal experience gained from his practice of law, although his experience with street thugs and the Mob, strip clubs and the CIA remains shrouded in mystery. His story "The Truth About Falling" was published in Fine Print in connection with its national short-story competition. R. P. Finch has received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University and a J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives with his wife, Kathy, in Atlanta, Georgia. SKIN IN THE GAME is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

Atlanta criminal attorney R. P. Finch, for his fiction debut, mixes the Mafia, quantum physics, and legal intrigue into a sometimes unwieldy cross-genre comedy. Nerdy lawyer Eben Burnham, in his first year at his family’s Wall Street law firm, Burnham & Wood, finds himself relying on his savvy officemate Wolf Lupo’s street smarts. Trying to expand his horizons, Eben begins dating junior associate Ellie Van Rensselaer, who becomes interested in Eben’s dream of a nanotech-oriented practice. Clay, her uncle, initially agrees to provide the capital backing, but when his finances fall short of his good intentions, Wolf rescues the project by going to his shadowy associate Tito Venga, a mobbed-up strip club owner. Addi-tional obstacles arise, however, in the form of slimy senior partner Huntington Harrow, who’s determined to get in on Eben’s action, and the CIA and FBI, which have decided for “national security” reasons to put the kibosh on the startup. The humor never lets up, as these eclectic, unlikely factions jostle for power, though Finch’s spoof eventually resolves in a disappointingly flat conclusion. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly