Eric Barnes
One man.
One company.
One disastrous lie.
One clock…ticking.
It’s a race against the truth.
SHIMMER
by
Eric Barnes
Pub Date: June 30, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-932961-67-6
Hardcover/$25.95/6×9/288pages/Fiction
What if someone offered you a little known, underperforming, computer hardware company… and you had a surefire idea that would turn that company into a billion dollar business, in the blink of an eye. So quickly and so successfully, in fact, that you’d become an international sensation overnight: the Talk of the Town. The only catch? You have to live a lie. A lie so big, so distastrous in the making that if discovered it will take down everyone around you. You’d be left, standing alone, holding the bag…full of money. And no one would ever know the truth.Would you do it?
Meet Robbie Case: the 35-year-old wunderkid CEO of Core Communications. In just three years, based solely on a technology no other company has been able to replicate, Robbie’s taken Core from a relatively unknown, family business into a $20 billion company with more than 5,000 employees. And, in the proceess, has become a rock star, worldwide, for his vision, leadership, and wealth. The only problem? Robbie is living a lie. The technology is a scam, the financials are built on a Ponzi scheme of stock sales and shell corporations and Robbie is struggling, everyday, to keep his company alive….to protect the friends who work for him and all they’ve built. The game is coming to an end.
Photo credit: Brad Johnson
In a debut that could have been ripped from today’s headlines but was, in fact, imagined years earlier when the author came to recognize through his own business dealings that "people believe what they want to believe", SHIMMER is the story of a high-tech crusade nearing its end – a novel that charges the atmosphere with suspense and delivers complex characters you want to believe in – in spite of their flaws. Shimmer is that beach-bag perfect combination of intrigue and deceit. The result: one spellbinding read.
Eric Barnes is the publisher of the Daily News in Memphis and The Memphis News. He was formerly COO of a communications
corporation, a reporter, and editor. He grew up in Washington and Alaska, working construction and in the fisheries. Eric has an MFA from Columbia University and his fiction has appeared in several publications including The Portland Review, The Northwest Review, The Greensboro Review, and Other Voices.
Forthcoming stories will appear in Pearl, Prairie Schooner, and Raritan.
Please feel free to contact Laura Bidwell if you have any questions or need additional information. You are also invited to visit www.unbridledbooks.com for a chapter excerpt and www.ericbarnes.net.
Laural Bidwell
Marketing – Events & Bookseller Outreach
(888-732-3822 x108)
Unbridled Books www.unbridledbooks.com
