One of the troubles with most novels that attempt to treat financial topics is that the people who write them are normally novelists only, rather than novelists-and-financiers, and consequently often don't have much inside understanding of the characters and situations that inevitably arise. This is an unfortunate fact, inasmuch as the world of high—and low—finance should provide fascinating grist for a novel. All too rarely, it does.

This paucity, we are happy to report, has been at least temporarily remedied, for we have a new novel titled "The Billion Dollar Sure Thing" from Paul E. Erdman, a man who, however briefly, was in fact a financial insider as well, later, as an insider at a Swiss prison after the Swiss-based bank that he headed failed amid charges of illegal activities at the bank….

Not only does he know banking, particularly the highly secretive Swiss variety, but...