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The Swindler by Michelle Kaye Malsbury

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The Swindler; A Ponzi Scheme

 

Are you an investor? Do you trust your broker to do as you ask with your money? Based on a true story, The Swindler will show you how easy it is for your broker to deceive you.

 

Skip Horowitz, the main character, has followed in the footsteps of his personal hero, Bernie Madoff, if perhaps, on a smaller scale. Instead of conning people for billions of dollars Skip Horowitz organizations have taken hundreds of millions of dollars and used them as if they were their own. Here’s how it works….

 

 

Skip and his old pal from Jersey, A.J., create what they believe is a foolproof Ponzi Scheme using commodities trading, bookmaking, and various other businesses as a plausible cover. Their plan has served them well for decades. Skip is seen as the “Teflon man” by his competitors and feels he is invincible.  

 

 

As Skip becomes more and more successful his lavish lifestyle and highly touted regular rate of returns comes under the scrutiny of the SEC, NFA, and CFTC who oversee commodities trading. Investigations by these governmental oversight agencies have been on and off for quite some time because there has been no solid proof to support any allegations of wrongdoing. Will Skip’s luck continue to hold or is his time up? 

The Story Behind This Book

The Swindler is based on a true story of a commodities trading firm that I worked for for a number of years. The story has been fictionalized, but many of the scenes actually took place.

Media Mentions

Praise and Reviews

Marilou Trask-Curtin Review for TheSwindler

Michelle:  First of all, congrats on an absolutely incredible book!!! Have you also written this as a screenplay????!!!! Would be amazing to watch and the timing seems right as well. 

 

I only found a couple of blips but after I wrote them down lost the note where I had written the page numbers. The  main one: There was mention of the basketball team the KNICKS...you had it written as the NICKS...that would need to be corrected as we New Yorker's who are KNICKS fans would probably retaliate by throwing soggy basketballs your way--LOL...otherwise, an incredible story...!!!

 

The Review:  "The Swindler"  - an incredibly fast-paced roller-coaster ride through the world of illegal commodities trading with enough sun and sin to heat up every reader's day (and night.)  Michelle Malsbury at her finest!  A definite must read!

 

                                          Marilou Trask-Curtin, Author of "In My Grandfather's House:

                                          A Catskill Journal"

 

Thanks again for the opportunity to read "The Swindler" and I wish you all the best with it.  Also, sorry it took so long....

 

Take care

Marilou

 

PS: I love the way you got MJ into the story with the crotch grabbing episode  :-]


 

Ron Hall Review,

Author, businessman, friend

 

“Well girl I just finished the Swindler as I jumped it ahead of others in line because of our friendship. Congratulations on a well conceived and well written thriller. I am under contract with Thomas Nelson, the largest faith based publisher in the world. Written consent from them is required for formal endorsement. Honey girl…..your murder for hire sex thriller ain’t gonna pass no Baptist review board to allow my endorsement. Not that Baptist’s don’t do all the things you wrote about, they like Skip, don’t admit it even under oath and if they get caught red handed, they claim the devil made them do it. Good luck.

 

Ron Hall,

Dallas, TX


 

Billy O’Toole Pre-review for The Swindler  by Michelle Kaye Malsbury, BSBM, MM

All Things That Matter’s Press, ISBN 978-0-9844219-4-7

2/22/10

Hi Michelle,
 
During a long and successful career in the trucking business, I always carried a stack of books to entertain myself and hopefully learn a little something also.  One of my favorites was Steven Frey because he always had some insights into the dark side of finance along with great characters.  Move over Frey and make room for Michelle Malsbury!
 
The Swindler has great characters, some lovable, and some not, but all believable.  Indeed, I felt like I already knew many and were acquainted with several others.  There were the obvious evil ones but the mindset of good ones being led along and seduced by money and the good life was particularly poignant. 
 
When my business blew up because I had no customers anymore, I began to study finance moved to being a Senior Financial Consultant.  In the process of interviews and study I felt like I met many of her characters, things just didn't feel right, but oh so seductive!
 
All this set in quirky and sultry southern Florida, I could feel the humidity, see the pastels, and revel in the ambience.  What more could anyone want in book?
 
Bill O'Toole
 
Senior Financial Consultant
 
Southern Commercial Corp
 
Columbia, Mo.
 
573 808 2122


 

Thomas Keyes Review for The Swindler by Michelle Kaye Malsbury,  5/14/2010

 

The Swindler is a fast-moving, hard-hitting account of a swindler who, with his batch of subalterns, ran a Ponzi scheme in Key West and elsewhere. The tale is so realistic and convincing that you can hardly believe that it didn’t really happen and that the authoress is not in there somewhere, perhaps as Catherine, the honest realtor who gets embroiled in the mess.

 

The racket consisted of selling counterfeit commodities futures mostly to fairly well-heeled middle class types, and following up by generating bogus statements showing earnings. It may be difficult to feel overly compassionate for someone worth several hundred thousand dollars who gets stung for fifty, but there are a lot of smaller victims too.

 

The most touching was a young girl in Central America whom Skip, the swindler, got pregnant.  She was hoping this pregnancy would bind them together and enable them to live a beautiful life.  Then the blow fell.  Skip was arrested and prosecuted, and the girl’s dreams flowed away in tears.

 

The pages are full of unsavory characters, and the action moves from Florida to the Bahamas to Costa Rica to Las Vegas.

 

The language is earthy.

 

Read it, you’ll like it.

 

 

Judy Ramsook from the Austin News Service, Austin, TX 4/9/10 Review for The Swindler

 

In The Swindler, by Michelle Malsbury, you will find yourself being pulled in to a fictional  tale of romance and a lot  commodities  swindling through the eyes of a third person narrator.

 

So come along and  meet true to life and memorable characters such as: Catherine, The Realtor/Commodities Broker,   Connie, Catherine’s best friend,  Shamus,  Real Estate Broker and the man who thinks he is the right man for Catherine and last but not least, Skip Horowitz,  a ruthless  Ponzi Schemer who is being   investigated by the Feds.

 

It’s a gripping tale   that will  make you want to keep turning those pages to see what happens next.

 

Set in Key West, Florida, the author displays her vast love for and knowledge of the area so well, that if you have not been there and know nothing about Key West, perusing The  Swindler  by Michelle Malsbury will indeed give you a rich education into that paradise.

 

So come on and enjoy this well written and detailed tale and see if Catherine really thinks Shamus is the right man for her,  and if  the elusive Skip Horowitz  gets  the justice he so deserves.

 

I enjoyed it and I think you will too.

 

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