Author: Salvatore Grasso
ISBN: 978-1-4401-6898-7

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We all heard Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street say that "greed is good."  After reading Larceny you'll see that it's also very interesting as long as you can keep up with the dialogue and the characters that make this novel so very thrilling to read.
 
Set in Philadelphia this novel produces a complex chain of events that creates a plan which ends up in murder.  Mr. Richard Gillespie, a self-made millionaire, believes that his venture capital firm is heading for trouble so he develops an intricate plan to save it.  His partner in this adventure is Dr. Bridgette Lonerghan, a university executive who runs a licensing group at a major research university.  She is asked by Gillespie to look into accessing a valuable portfolio of inventions.  Research inventions are owned by universities and they in turn license some to industries for future development.  The universities charge fees and receive a cut of the money from sales of these various products.  But, really a few faculty members are getting rich from public investments.  Through Dr. Lonerghan, Gillespie hopes to look through the portfolio and find one invention that he can tout as a profitable investment to his clients.  Dr. Lonerghan becomes a dupe in a game of greed between Gillespie and Louis Jacobsen who is the head of the university's Technology Office.  Jacobsen is then unable to focus on the program as his unfaithful wife is drugging him.  (An interesting little sidebar).  When the FBI gets involved the fun begins, suspense goes through the roof and bodies start piling up.  
 
This debut novel by Mr. Grasso, examines what might go wrong when greed and self obsession destroy the support of one of the country's prestigious research universities.  I applaud the author for his descriptions, dialogue and characters that make this novel such a good read.  It's not right for a few people to profit so much on the backs of people who are just trying to do good for the masses.  Fortunately, I know someone who works in the financial world and was able to understand many of the terms used in the book.  I throughly enjoyed the story.