Mickey Outside Paperback – April 1, 2014

Mickey Outside was a fun read where the real bad guy gets it in the end but many of the setups/scenarios seem implausible

Mickey Steinberg is a former Wall Street exzecutive who has been sent to a country club prison for insider trading. This facility is in South Dakota. Heis due to be released in short order. He is now trying to concoct a scheme to bring in some big money. Upon being sent to prison his wife Rachel divorces him and takes half of hid fortune with her. Mickey loses his half of the estate due to fines and legal fees. Rachel has taken up with Walter Goldstein a veryquestionable art dealer. He is broke. He comes up with a plan with Paul Reese a fellow prisoner. They research a stolen masterpiece and decide to duplicateit. There is an artist in the prison who is capable of this. His name is Rene-Pierre Bouchard. They sit down with Bouchard and come up with a plan. Thepainting they decide to copy is "View Of The Sea" by Van Gogh. Mickey has to borrow $20,000 from Rachel to get this enterprise off the ground. In the meantime in order to get a lightened sentence Mickey had to testify against his partner Jack Grass and others who were involved in the insider trading ring. His coconspirators have hired a professional assassin to kill Mickey Steinberg. The killer's nsme is Morivian White. He threatens Rachel and makes several attempts at killing Mickey. They have ab elaborate scheme to sell the false painting. Paul Reece memorizes paintings and wines to fit into the world of art.Walter Goldstein tries to sabotage Mickey's efforts to sell the painting at a profit.Mickey manages to bypass this effort. Mickey finally prevails. Racheldiscovers that Walter Goldstein has spent her money and left town. This is an excellent financial thriller. Keep up the good work David Lender.

Mickey Outside by David Lender is a good, not great, book. The author starts the action immediately (something I am a fan of in books) with Mickey in a country club-like jail (busted for Wall Street fraud) looking for someone to help him with a to be determined scam to make money to maintain a lavish lifestyle after they are let out in a few weeks. Mickey chooses Paul and together they settle on commissioning another inmate to create a perfect copy of a Van Gogh that was stolen several years ago (the author chose to use a Van Gogh that really was stolen from a museum in 2002) and then passing off the copy as genuine and scamming a very wealthy person out of millions of dollars.The action was pretty consistent throughout the book. No parts dragged, but nothing (including a gun chase) was super exciting either. I found myself rooting for Mickey and Paul to succeed in their scam because they were both truly likeable characters. The dialogue was definitely a strong point. The transitions through time were often confusing, however. I think this was partly because the chapters were just plain too long (only 6 for the entire book). There was a side story about a criminal’s brother roughing up and stalking Mickey’s ex-wife and then going after Mickey that I felt was completely unnecessary, didn’t belong, and was only added to increase the overall length of the book. The few times those parts came up were distracting from the main story.Mickey Outside is an easy read, and definitely worth reading if the description interests you. It doesn’t take much concentration and reads fast. Bottom line is it’s not great, but it’s not bad either, and I definitely don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it.

I thought this was a really good book. I am an artist turned wall street banker so this book was right in my wheelhouse. I was hesitant about this book at first because the title sounded a bit corny but once I started reading I was hooked. The author experience as an investment banker is evident in the way the main character Mickey speaks and acts. And the detail he goes through when discussing the art tells me he really did his research.In the book Mickey a former wall street guy who was arrested for insider trading is plotting to con the man who is engaged to his ex-wife. At the same time the brother of a man angry that Mickey helped put in jail is out trying to kill him, and the DA who put Mickey in jail is suspicious of Mickey's new "art dealer" career. The art con itself is a pretty clever caper, but when you add to it the people trying to kill Mickey it makes it that much more thrilling.My only complaint about the book and its really really minor, is that it seems out of place for Warren Buffett to be talking about a stolen painting. It just doesn't seem believable that a guy like that would want to be involved in an illegal deal like that. Other than that I thought this was a really good book and I can't wait to read David Lender's other books. I highly recommend

Not too bad, but it start rather slowly and went on and on looking backwards on the characters. It was really only in the last few pages that it got going and became readable.

A good story congratulations to the author I couldn't think who was the real bad news until the end thank you again.

A pleasant story, easy to put down but when picked up easy to follow. Simlpe, not taxing, easy story to read.

Great read

Really held me to the kindle.Watch out for the twists before deceiding what is what.