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Book Summary and Reviews of Leverage by Amran Gowani

Leverage by Amran Gowani

Leverage

A Novel

by Amran Gowani

  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Published:
  • Aug 2025, 320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

For readers of Percival Everett and viewers of Industry, a hotshot hedge fund employee must risk everything to save his job—and his life—in this timely and darkly funny thriller about race, power, and the corrupting influence of the almighty dollar.

Ali "Al" Jafar is a rising star at notorious hedge fund Prism Capital, but fortunes change fast on Wall Street. When his biggest investment goes up in smoke, Al loses $300 million—and his fragile sense of self-worth—in a single afternoon. He's certain he'll be fired, but Prism's obscenely rich and politically connected founder isn't that merciful. Instead, he gives Al an impossible ultimatum: recover the lost money in three months or become the fall guy for the government's insider-trading investigation into the firm.

Depressed and desperate, Al turns to high finance's dark side, where he battles back-stabbing coworkers and cutthroat competitors and digs himself into an even deeper hole. As the clock winds down, and the pressure mounts, Al's mental health deteriorates. To survive, he'll have to outfox one of the world's most powerful men and decide if he values the dearest asset of all: himself.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] blistering and riveting debut...Funny and full of narrative shocks reminiscent of works by Percival Everett and Sergio de la Pava, [Leverage] is gloriously outlandish and compulsively readable." —Booklist (starred review)

"Though Gowani's rendering of the racist, sexist world of finance occasionally feels like it's perpetuating the stereotypes he attempts to skewer, the plot is tense without straining plausibility too far, and Al comes off as an intelligent antihero whom the reader will (somewhat reluctantly) want to see triumph over those manipulating him. It's an encouraging first outing." —Publishers Weekly

"Fast and funny, appalling and appalled, Leverage absolutely nails the rats-eating-each-other vibe of the post-Great-Recession, pre-Trump era. Al Jafar—who knows hedge funds like Ishmael knows whales, like Dante knows Hell—is among the most entertaining voices in recent fiction." —Martin Seay, author of The Mirror Thief

"I love a good Wall Street thriller, but I especially love one with this kind of depth and nuance – a keen and brilliant sense of the absurdity of it all. Amran is a sharp and funny, often surprisingly moving writer." —Catherine Baab, author of Poe for Your Problems: Uncommon Advice from History's Least Likely Self-Help Guru

This information about Leverage was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Amran Gowani

Amran Gowani is a former Wall Street analyst who lives in Chicago with his wife and two children. He writes the cult favorite email newsletter Field Research. Leverage is his first novel. Learn more at AmranGowani.com.

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