Novel Explosives

"An amazing novel . . . the most fun reading I've had in ages."Steven Moore, author ofThe Novel: An Alternative History

It's the week after Easter, April 1320, 2009.

Late in the week, a man wakes up in Guanajuato, Mexico, with his knowledge intact, but with no sense of who he is or how he came to Guanajuato. His only clues are a driver's license and ATM card, both of which are in the name of Alvaro de Campos, one of the heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa.

Earlier in the week, a man sits at his desk in an office tower in Santa Monica, California, attempting to complete his memoirs after twenty-five years in the venture business. Unfortunately, one of his current deals may be a money-laundering scam, and its lead investor has been calling him in the night, not only demanding his money back, but citing the relevant passages from Shakespeare'sThe Tempest.

And in the middle of the week, just before dawn on April 15, two gunmen arrive at an El Paso motel to retrieve a duffel bag stuffed full of currency, and eliminate the man who brought it to El Paso.

Thus begins the three-stranded narrative of Novel Explosives, a search for identity that travels through the worlds of venture finance, the Juárez drug wars, and enhanced-lethality thermobaric weaponry.

Jim Gauer is a mathematician, widely published poet, and possibly the world's only Marxist Venture Capitalist.