Title: From Shreds To Riches: Inspired by True Events
Authors: David Fisher and Cal Orey
Publisher: From Shreds to Riches LLC
Pages: 396
ISBN: B098JL3Q5V
Genre: Motivational/ Fiction/Financial Crime Thrillers
Reviewed by: David Allen
Hollywood Book Reviews
Welcome to the world of fast bucks, cut-throat competition, and sleazy business. Welcome to the world of Scott Newman, light bulb telemarketer extraordinaire. The unstated premise of this exuberant roman à clef is that the corruption and greed of Newman’s universe, ostensibly set in the 1970s, is alive and healthy today.
Scott’s dad is a “blue-collar working stiff” who tells his son “You’ve got to work hard for the money to survive.” Scott takes this to heart and Scott Newman is in love with wife, his anchor, but he does stray once.
Scott is an autodidact. He foregoes college – he is ‘self-taught.’ At the age of 10, based on knowledge gleaned from encyclopedias, Scott begins working at Golden Jewelers in the Bronx. His rapid progress is a harbinger of things (including disaster) to come.
What follows in this extraordinary narrative and life course is a series of gigs, some short, some extended, in various businesses across the land. Scott rises to the top of the food chain at Lumina Pearls, his success fueled by ‘treasure hunts’ (based on the Amway model) held at customers’ homes. Customers troll for oysters in fish tanks, each oyster containing a pearl.
Hold on to your hat. Scott has just begun! His success as a jeweler – landing him increasingly stratospheric salaries, a gig in Beverly Hills, a franchise in St. Louis, then a store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side – is followed by a career switch. Various gold-digging temptresses appear along the way. But Scott remains faithful to his one true love, Jenny, “who could have been a Stevie Nicks look-alike.”
Scott Newman, aided, abetted and ultimately confounded by a series of nasty entrepreneurial types, becomes the ‘Benjamin King’, a super successful light bulb telemarketer who sends overnight priority envelopes stuffed with hundred-dollar bills to his clients. The clients accept the money, gladly take the gift cards Scott offers, and in turn orders prodigious amounts of light bulbs. All of this is done covertly, under the radar of corporate monitoring.
Things accelerate when Newman and company go on a treasure hunt of their own: they forage through dumpsters for shredded receipts and sales orders of rival companies. This yields enormous returns, in the form of new business, new customers stolen from old competitors.
Scott Newman gets his comeuppance – but not really. In a dramatic raid, he is taken down by the FBI. He is convicted of trade-base money laundering. The ensuing courtroom drama is riveting and very ably written. Scott lands a six-year prison sentence but emerges triumphant, basking in renewed material success.
This cautionary tale, based on real life events, is well-written and moves fast! Readers will be drawn in by the gutsy language and by the primitive instincts portrayed here. Scott Newman is the incarnation of some of our base – and basest – hopes and fears. Required reading for salesmen, managers and M.B.A.’s throughout the land! General readers will also enjoy this riveting business adventure story.