Hazards of Good Fortune

Fiction that feels as contemporaryas tomorrow's headlines.Jay Gladstone was born to privilege. He is a civic leader and a generous philanthropist, as well as the owner of a basketball team. But in today's New York, even a wealthy man's life can spin out of control, no matter the money or influence he possesses. When a white cop shoots an unarmed black man in ambiguous circumstances, the reverberations reach all the way up to the highest levels of society. Combining elements of comedy and tragedy, the multi-layered narrative shifts perspectives from Jay Gladstone's gilded universe to the worlds of an opportunistic district attorney who refuses to let a failing marriage interfere with her plan to run for Governor, an aging professional athlete in search of one last payday, a group of college radicals determined to take bold action in the fight against racism, a virtuous but unlucky cop who wants to be a lawyer, and a feisty pair of talk radio personalities who serve as Greek chorus. Set during the last year of Barack Obama's presidency, the novel does not shy away from the scalding social and racial divide. With a brilliant eye for character, and a finely wrought plot that mixes biting humour with uncomfortable truth, readers will find comparisons with Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities.