Through a kaleidoscope of voices—his wife, his British secretary, his Marxist brother, the Lehman “informant,” an internal auditor dedicated to Jed’s destruction, and others—we come to intimately understand Jed and how the unpredictable external forces to which we are all susceptible shape and define us.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was a pivotal moment in the 2008 crash of the financial markets that led to job losses, a housing market crisis, and a global recession whose effects are still being felt to this day. In telling the story of one man at the center of this moment, Ken Miller offers us a new perspective on Wall Street in the twenty-first century.

From the meteoric rise of an investment banker to the devastating fall of Lehman Brothers, this novel captures a defining moment in financial history.

Told through multiple voices, including family, colleagues, rivals, and informants, author Ken Miller immerses readers in the ambition, risk, and ruthless decision-making that fueled one of Wall Street’s most turbulent eras. Drawing on insider knowledge, Miller delivers a layered portrait of Jed Czincosca, a man whose relentless drive leads to fortune and destruction. With themes of money, power, and market collapse, this novel will resonate with readers who enjoy true crime, stock market sagas, and gripping business books.

It’s both a compelling drama and a sharp commentary on the system that rewards risk, and punishes failure.

An Excerpt From High Finance:

The more Lehman stock Jed owned, the greater his commitment to The Firm grew. As his investment increased, so did the frequency of his Stoli/pot binges, and the more frequently they occurred, the more nudges Amanda gave about the family’s need for a “relaxing vacation.” A week here and there at their second home in Quogue was not what she had in mind. Her nagging after the birth of their second son was becoming unbearable to him, just as his bouts of depression were to her.

Finally, one Saturday evening, the issue over vacation was resolved. He had been reading to Petey, who was six, and Robby, who was almost four. Tiffky Doofky was a story about a dapperly dressed canine garbage collector seeking love in all the wrong places. Amanda entered the room just as Tiffky found his true love in Estrella the snake charmer.

“Stay, mommy,” Petey begged. She sat down on his bed. “Do ducks really know the future?” Petey asked, referring to the prediction by Madame Tarsal, the fortune-telling mallard who had foreseen Tiffky’s happiness. “Only talking ducks,” Jed said. “Daddy, story,” Robby requested, around the thumb in his mouth.

Jed and Amanda looked affectionately into each other’s eyes over the bodies of their sleepy children. “Once upon a time,” he began, “Tiffky and Estrella had a litter of two beautiful puppies. Tiffky was a complicated mutt, and happiness was hard for him. He loved the puppies like crazy, often bringing a special something for them that he’d found in the garbage.” “Woof,” Robby said. “But he was crazy focused on one thing.” “What, daddy?” Petey wanted to know. “Owning the dump, or as much of it as he could get his hands on—” “Do doggies ever go on vacation?” Petey interrupted. He had obviously been pre-programmed by Amanda. In a heartbeat, Jed went from angry to resigned to magnanimous. “I don’t know,” he smiled, “but how would you boys like to go on one?”

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Marlowe masterfully combines Renaissance humanism with medieval morality, creating a play that challenges audiences to reflect on ambition, free will, and the dangers of hubris. With its poetic language, dramatic tension, and exploration of existential themes, Dr. Faustus remains one of the most celebrated works of English Renaissance drama.

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The novel explores the darker aspects of human ambition and the fragile nature of trust in society. Lawson vividly depicts the turbulence of early 20th-century finance, creating a story that combines thrilling drama with a scathing critique of unchecked power. Readers witness the consequences of hubris and the lengths people will go to achieve their goals, making this novel a timeless exploration of human nature.

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The Hardy Boys have evolved since their debut in 1927. From 1959 to 1973, the first 38 books were extensively revised, largely to remove depictions of racial stereotypes; they were also targeted towards younger readers by being rewritten in a simpler, action-oriented style to compete with television.

A new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original “Hardy Boys Mystery Stories” series ended in 2005. A new series, Undercover Brothers, was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person. Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by The Hardy Boys Adventures, also narrated in the first person.

Through these changes the characters have remained popular; the books sell more than a million copies annually, several new volumes are published each year, and the adventures have been translated into over 25 languages. The boys have been featured in five television shows and several video games, and have helped promote merchandise such as lunchboxes and jeans. Critics have many explanations for the characters’ longevity, suggesting that the Hardy Boys embody wish fulfillment, American ideals of boyhood and masculinity, a well-respected father paradoxically argued to be inept in the later books, and the possibility of the triumph of good over evil.

On January 1, 2023, the original editions of the first three books entered the public domain in the United States. Under current copyright laws, the revised editions will not be in the public domain in the United States until 2054.

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A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

Shakespeare’s source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as “The Scottish Play”. The play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comics, and other media.

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Hamlet is considered among the “most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language”, with a story capable of “seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others”.

There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare’s play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of “source hunting”, pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When Shakespeare wrote, there were many stories about sons avenging the murder of their fathers, and many about clever avenging sons pretending to be foolish in order to outsmart their foes. This would include the story of the ancient Roman, Lucius Junius Brutus, which Shakespeare apparently knew, as well as the story of Amleth, which was preserved in Latin by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum, and printed in Paris in 1514. The Amleth story was subsequently adapted and then published in French in 1570 by the 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. It has a number of plot elements and major characters in common with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and lacks others that are found in Shakespeare. Belleforest’s story was first published in English in 1608, after Hamlet had been written, though it’s possible that Shakespeare had encountered it in the French-language version.

Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto (Q1, 1603); the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604); and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.

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