Bad Connection

Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, April 2001: Michael Ledwidge follows his exciting debut, The Narrowback, with another edge-of-the-seat thriller. Sean Macklin is a telephone repairman in New York City. While dealing with a problem on a line, Sean inadvertently plugs into a conversation that he should not be hearing--but he does. Sean's wife is disabled and they desperately need money, and the conversation is about a merger about to take place. Sean knows that inside information like this can pay off big, so he invests, making a handsome profit.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Michael S. Ledwidge's debut novel, The Narrowback, was a gritty, atmospheric account of the lethal aftermath of a successful Manhattan hotel robbery, signaling the arrival of an original, potentially significant new voice. Ledwidge's second novel, the grim, ironic Bad Connection, reaffirms that initial impression, giving us a swiftly paced, deeply authentic story of greed and its unintended consequences.

In some respects, Bad Connection bears comparison to Scott Smith's A Simple Plan. The simple plan that dominates the Ledwidge novel manifests itself in the opening chapter. Sean Macklin, a roving repairman for the New York City phone company, is conducting business-as-usual when he accidentally taps into a private conversation, learns the details of a forthcoming corporate merger, and uses the knowledge to make a quick, highly unethical killing on the New York Stock Exchange. From that point forward, Sean -- who has a desperately ill wife and a legitimate need for money -- sees his access to the city's phone system as the answer to all his problems. He places a tap on the private line of a high-powered investment firm and begins a clandestine second career as an inside trader.

All goes well until Sean eavesdrops on Chemtech CEO Robert Trent and learns that Trent has authorized the cover-up of a mass murder in El Salvador. Shocked by the knowledge and determined not to profit from it, Robert turns the evidence over to his brother Ray, a New York City policeman with problems of his own. Like his younger brother Sean, Ray Macklin needs money. He is a compulsive, spectacularly unsuccessful gambler, and his life is on a collision course with the Mafia and the Internal Affairs Division of the NYPD. Without informing Sean, Ray uses his knowledge of Chemtech's complicity to blackmail Trent, setting in motion a chain of events that will change -- or end -- the life of virtually every major character in the novel.

Bad Connection is a spare, tightly constructed novel about people driven to desperate acts by greed, ambition, and grinding need. It is distinguished throughout by Ledwidge's bone-deep familiarity with New York City -- from the boardrooms of the rich and powerful to the subterranean passages most people never see -- and by his equally impressive knowledge of the inner workings of a modern telephone company. Ledwidge, a former phone company employee, paints a cautionary portrait of a technologically vulnerable society, a society in which a commonplace object -- the telephone -- can, under the proper circumstances, become a weapon. The result is an authentic urban nightmare by a gifted young writer who brings a bleak, highly personal vision to the established traditions of the hard-boiled novel of suspense. (Bill Sheehan)

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a city fueled by money lust, a powerful CEO and an ordinary working man come together by a twist of fate to go head-to-head in a heart-pounding scheme of greed and deadly corporate conspiracy.

New York City telephone repairman Sean Macklin has a good enough life, but he wishes he could get his hands on some extra dough and move with his disabled wife to Florida.

So when he inadvertently taps into a secret conversation between an investment banker and a dot-com entrepreneur, and before his conscience can tell him otherwise, he turns his insider information of an imminent merger into a tidy profit through day trading.

As hhis penchant for subversive stock deals grows, so do the risks. But the day he taps into the line of a chemical company's CEO, a man with the power to order a clean merger&3151;at any cost—Macklin's get-rich-quick plan starts to spiral desperately out of control. Hearing more than he should, he calls on his brother NYPD officer Ray, for help. In a world where nothing is as it sounds, the Macklin brothers become the bait in a cutthroat game of blackmail, corruption, and violence. And Sean Macklin's dream of a better life becomes a fatal nightmare...

In the suspense-charged, noir tradition of Richard Price and Jim Thompson, Michael Ledwidge's electrifying thriller pulses with raw, urban energy. From Manhattan boardrooms to Bronx streets, Bad Connection traces the evil depths to which men will sink to protect their business interests.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

From a onetime New York City telephone company employee, author of the much-acclaimed debut novel The Narrowback, this new edge-of-the seat fiction noir rings with authenticity as it imagines the plight of Sean Macklin, a Manhattan telephone repairman who accidentally overhears a phone conversation about the machinations surrounding a big-time business merger. Chemtech CEO Robert Brent is planning a buyout of Allied Genesis, a smaller but technologically superior company, which will send Chemtech's stock soaring and move it to the forefront of the industry. Dreaming of taking his invalid wife to Florida and escaping his dreary existence, Macklin is seduced into using his easy access to the private phone lines of corporate power players to amass a tidy nest egg through insider trading. However, he is torn by the guilty knowledge that Brent sanctioned the murder of 30 or 40 workers protesting conditions at a Chemtech installation in Central America. Macklin's older brother, Ray, meanwhile, still lives with their mother and, like their father, is a cop in the South Bronx. A compulsive gambler, Ray is deep in debt to the mob and on the take. He is also under surveillance by NYPD's Internal Affairs division. Macklin, unaware of his brother's problems, finally decides to ask Ray to anonymously put the tape recording exposing Brent and his co-conspirators into the hands of the authorities. Sensing an opportunity for grand blackmail, which will solve his problems, Ray contacts Brent, a move that makes the brothers targets for termination as the action ricochets around New York City in a series of final, fateful confrontations. Cleanly written and convincingly detailed, this is an assured first effort. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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