Publisher: XLibris Corporation.

 ISBN: 1-4134-6664-8

  In the new wild East, when the laws of the capitalist jungle have come to replace previous beliefs, the septuagenarian novelist Arthur Rizler has come to preach to the thirsting masses on the topic of Mozart. Alas, in Prague, where the action is mostly set, the Rolling Stones are also playing and this far outweighs the musings of the aged novelist. While the speech is rearranged, his fourth Maya, her mother (the dreadful Mrs Svobodnik) and would be lover, the Global Bankâ's globetrotting consultant Jeremy Stuart circle around each other in this amusing, extraordinary and compelling story.
 
     Rizler is concerned with his own place in the world and its history, having achieved success writing social anthropology about the ethnic experience in the USA “ but his powers have waned and he fails to discern the connections between his own past ideology and the rise of the grubby right wing Croatian and his gang, the son of the millionaire bartender at his hotel. Jeremy Stuart takes the role of anti-ideologue, having realized that the intellectual life offered by academia is mostly a fraud “and possibly a degraded one at that, while traveling the world in a borrowed but private jet. His lunches are martinis and his intentions are to promote himself while derailing the privatization of the Czech telecommunications industry and collecting as many attractive young women who strike his fancy and who might be available. Especially Maya, whom he monitors electronically, with all the skills of an expert researcher.
 
     This is a modern novel combining the novel of manners, the satirical commentary and the philosophical reflection. It also has some good jokes, which always helps. It is a surprising confection and, surprisingly, it more or less hangs together, although the ending is probably the weakest part. Then again, that may be my desire for a coherent ideology to emerge from the post modern wreckage of destructive capitalism rather than the small consolations of human empathy.
 
     Recommended and I would anticipate that future works will find a larger publisher than Xlibris, which has done a good enough job on production but has not eliminated all typos.