Amazon.com info for 'The Castro Gene'

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Back to reviews and details of The Castro Gene

Amazon.com reviews:

Rating: 5 Summary: From J. Kaye's Book Blog
Comment I was a bit disappointed to see Publishers Weekly call Buchholz's novel an "awkward fiction debut..." I found the book delightfully entertaining. The main character, Luke Braden, is a young man who quits high school, moves out to his own basement apartment and trains for professional boxing. Luke's venture into boxing is short-lived when he kills his opponent in the boxing ring.

When he walks away from boxing, he hopes to become a financial advisor by working his way up the ladder. By some miracle, he lands a job as a security guard in a building owned by Paul Tremont. (Tremont is president of his own hedge fund and worth billions.) Eventually through what Luke thinks is clever maneuvering he gets a meeting with Mr. Tremont, but he doesn't know that Mr. Tremont has been watching him and waiting for the right time.

Luke becomes Tremont's protégé and overnight, his ratty basement apartment is replaced with a penthouse, his gym clothes for designer suits. Luke has no clue he is but a pawn in a dangerous game that will have him in a fight for his life.

What I enjoyed best? The a little Kennedy/Castro history mixed with revenge and murder. The ending was another favorite part too.

What I liked the least? Let me think about that some more and get back to you.

Rating: 5 Summary: A taut, action-packed thriller.
Comment The debut novel of former White House Director of Economic policy Todd Buchholz, The Castro Gene is a dramatic novel of one man caught amid a power struggle of international proportions. When boxer Luke Braden kills his opponent in the ring, it catapults him headlong into danger. Offered a shot at the big time by a hedge fund kingpin, Luke becomes inextricably involved in the machinations of Fidel Castro, during the last days of Castro's dictatorship. Luke will have to face his biggest fight yet - with his life as the prize! A taut, action-packed thriller.

Rating: 4 Summary: Reviewed by Carianne Carleo-Evangelist
Comment The Castro Gene, written by Todd Buchholz (Oceanview Publishing ISBN: 1933515066), is an excellent example of how an author can take his real world experiences and translate them into a fictional world. Many know Todd Buchholz's name from his expertise in current events, especially economics, and this expertise helps to make the story in The Castro Gene to seem more real. There is no doubt that it's a fictional account of the Kennedy/Castro days, but the author's credibility allows you to wonder `what if?' Additionally, and what is probably The Castro Gene's biggest strength, is that the author is able to create a story for the readers to follow.

The story here focuses around Luke Braden, a young boxer of intriguing pedigree: he's the son of a Columbia literature professor, who leaves boxing suddenly following the death of an opponent. In what seems to be an odd change of fortune, he becomes an investment analyst who quickly rises through the ranks under the somewhat watchful eye of his boss, Paul Tremont.

Braden learns that while he may have left the physical fights of the boxing ring behind, the walls of an office are far from innocent. Tremont uses Braden and in a sense Braden allows it. He wants the benefits, the high life, and is seemingly willing to pay any price for it. It's an interesting twist given that we're allowed to believe he walked away from boxing because he didn't like the side effects: namely death.

Another of Buchholz' strengths: we as readers were allowed to draw our own conclusions. Why was a former boxer the key to Tremont's success? Wouldn't a man of his standing have any number of tools at his disposal? What was special about Braden? Why was this important to Braden? He could have done anything, why choose this path?

As a reader who was not yet born at the time of the Kennedy/Castro conflicts, this was an interesting lens with which to view it. "What if..." covers a lot of history. What if Bay of Pigs and/or the Cuban Missile Crisis had turned out differently? What if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated? The book can't answer these questions, and doesn't try to, but it certainly lends some fun aspects to the rear view mirror of history.

What if...?

Rating: 5 Summary: Buchholz delivers a winner!
Comment The central thematic question of Todd Buchholz's The Castro Gene, his first foray into non-fiction, is, "What makes a man?" Is it his actions? His affiliations? The car he drives? His genes? Of course, this is a thriller, so the answer isn't simple. A young boxer, having killed a man in the ring, is well on his way to being a security guard for the rest of his life, when the head of a massive corporation gives him the key to a new life in international finance. Soon, he's plunged into a series of tests that are set up to determine whether he can perform an unwitting coup de grace in an intricately plotted conspiracy that has stretched over forty years. Money, power, corruption, murder, sex: all the good stuff.

Rating: 5 Summary: Sizzling Suspense
Comment Fortunately for us, Todd Buchholz has brought his time tested, creative writing talent to the world of fiction with the publication of the Castro Gene. I found the characters deeply interesting and well developed and the plot moved along at a breath-taking pace. For those of us who have so enjoyed Todd's non-fiction writing over the years, this was a wonderful and welcome surprise -- I can't wait to see what he does for an encore.