The Bezzle

by Cory Doctorow

eBook, 228 pages

English language

Published Feb. 20, 2024 by Tor Books.

ASIN:: B0C1X73SYZ

(3 reviews)

The year is 2006. Martin Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He spends his downtime on Catalina Island, where scenic, imported bison wander the bluffs and frozen, reheated fast food burgers cost 25$. Wait, what? When Marty disrupts a seemingly innocuous scheme during a vacation on Catalina Island, he has no idea he’s kicked off a chain of events that will overtake the next decade of his life.

Martin has made his most dangerous mistake yet: trespassed into the playgrounds of the ultra-wealthy and spoiled their fun. To them, money is a tool, a game, and a way to keep score, and they’ve found their newest mark—California’s Department of Corrections. Secure in the knowledge that they’re living behind far too many firewalls of shell companies and investors ever to be identified, they are interested not in the lives they ruin, but only in how much money they can extract from the government and the hundreds of thousands of prisoners they have at their mercy.

A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash, The Bezzle is a sizzling follow-up to Red Team Blues.

1 edition

Mark Crocker reviewed The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

Bezzle comment

3 stars

I found The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr somewhat disappointing, especially compared to Red Team Blues. While it was an interesting read, it was enough of a grind, that I put it down part way through and only finished it months later when I finished my other, more entertaining books.

Sure, some of my disappointment is because Cory set the bar so high. Also, since I already knew about the abuses of the private prison system and have been reading other authors who rant on about the abuses of oligarchs. So there was very little in here that was entirely new to me. For people who aren't familiar with these topics, I could see how it would be a big mind opener. For me it was a long litany of horrors.

On the other hand The Bezzle did expand my knowledge of the extent or particulars of the abuses and …

On the other hand The Bezzle did expand my knowledge of the extent or particulars of the abuses and personalities involved. It was engaging, but not entertaining. However, I don't put entertainment at the top of my priorities for good reading because I'd rather be engaged with interesting topics than pandered to.

Overall, The Bezzle was worth reading, but vaguely disappointing.

Marek reviewed The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

Blood boiling financial thriller

4 stars

Content warning No specific spoilers, but commentary which you might want to avoid if you want to read it wholly fresh.

Doctorow knew he was on to something when he came up with Marty Hench, and he was right.

Red Team Blues was Hench's last case, so this is an earlier one - set across more than a decade from the mid-2000s to the late teens. It includes Doctorow at his expositional best - wrapping explainers on class crime, financial crime, and corruption in light tissues of noir thriller in a way that will be leave your blood boiling and your guts churning with how despicable and unjust are the systems in which people are caught up in the States (in particular, California). (The particular problems associated with privatised prison systems are likely specific to the US, though general points about corruption in the legal and carceral systems are probably a bit more general.)

Hench himself keeps that same aura of competence porn and bloody-mindedness that makes him an appealing noir detective, and the pettiness and venality of his opponents I guess will likely be unavoidable across all of the stories we're likely to see here.

Doctorow presents an uncomfortable ending which was not supposed to satisfy, but to me was a little too weak on a key aspect such that it didn't quite land. All in all though, a good example of Doctorow doing what he does well.

reconbot reviewed The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

A long windy preaching road that is still kind of fun

3 stars

Not nearly as good as book one, however, still enjoyable, and a decent adventure. You gotta get through part one though it goes on for a long while. it’s all about rich people behaving poorly and the set up absolutely pays off. But it is a substantial set up.

I learned a bunch about financial crime, I learned a bunch about the prison system, I learned a bunch about rich people. I’m still excited for book three, but I hope it learns its lessons from book two.