This slam-bang novel of international finance and scheming ["The Crash of '79"] is largely about greed.

And why not? The author, Paul E. Erdman, is a former international financier and therefore knows the subject intimately. Most of the rest of us may lack his expertise, but we enjoy reading about covetousness—at least the successful practice of covetousness—the way we like reading about more graphic sins. And Erdman eases any guilt we might feel at this pleasure by providing a finale that shows how greed leads to truly dreadful things.

Erdman piles on a lot of factual-seeming detail about international banking, Mideast potentates and so forth. This technique creates some odd technical problems as the book canters along, through world crises and nuclear war scares. Erdman is highly skilled at creating fictive worlds of intrigue and high finance for the lay reader, as he proved with his...