Cash Out

It's 2008. In three days, family man and Silicon Valley speechwriter Dan Jordan will see his start-up stock vest. He'll cash out with $1.1 million, turn in his frenetic Valley life in for a slower one on the beach with his wife and two children, and finally live the life he's supposed to live. Or so he thinks. Before he can collect his cash and get outta Dodge, all hell breaks loose. Dan is kidnapped by a gang of tiny IT nerds who threaten to get him fired before the options can vest, stalked by a potentially murderous corporate security muscle man, and confronted with the possible disintegration of his marriage, all while his sociopath neighbor, Crazy Larry, threatens to ruin everything. . . . Side-splittingly funny and full of larger-than-life characters, Cash Out is like Office Space as reimagined by the creators of The Hangover—a sly caper gone outrageously, unforgettably awry. From BooklistA former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, Dan Jordan is just days from cashing out $1.1 million in FlowBid stock. The money will enable him to leave a job and a company he despises and build a better life for his family, somewhere on a beach. But as he limps from a doctor’s office following a vasectomy, he’s abducted by three elfin but enraged IT geeks, who blackmail him. Soon after, a thuggish stranger throws him through a glass door into a supermarket freezer. Both attacks threaten his dream and even his wife and kids. Debut-novelist Bardsley, a former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, succeeds grandly in making Silicon Valley a place of intrigue and dangerous head cases and hard cases. Even Jordan’s neighbors are grotesquely demented and creepily scary. FlowBid is a spectacularly toxic corporate zoo fueled by narcissism, hubris, self-aggrandizement, mendacity, and lack of scruples. A careening plot, plenty of action, outrageous bad guys, an otherworldly milieu, and many laughs make Cash Out a must-read for crime lovers with a taste for the bizarre. --Thomas Gaughan Review"A wild romp of a book ... In this world where making quick money is all the rage, it's quite dead-on." (Bookreporter.com)"Bardsley is smart about Silicon Valley culture,." (Publishers Weekly)"Succeeds grandly in making Silicon Valley a place of intrigue and dangerous head cases and hard cases.  ...  A careening plot, plenty of action, outrageous bad guys, an otherworldly milieu, and many laughs make Cash Out a must-read for crime lovers with a taste for the bizarre." (Booklist)"A satirical romp. ... A crazy ride through the corporate pressure cooker, filled with lust, ego, greed and dreams of escaping to a simpler, more balanced life." (Metro)“Cash Out is one of those novels that begs for more adjectives: relentless, madcap, polished, lean, vivid, warped, original, horrifying and hilarious in equal measure. It’s like the spawn of mad monkey sex between Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski. Which is a good thing.” (Marcus Sakey, award-winning author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes and The Amateurs )“A psychotic head-scratcher in the best possible way. Bardsley’s story is wild, unpredictable, and totally original.” (Los Angeles Book Review )“A tense, satirical black comedy that will leave you with paper cuts from anticipating what’s on the next page and an aching gut from the laughter.” (Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana )“Greg Bardsley’s writing walks on the wild side, with street swagger and a switch-blade in the sock. His short stories are an internet sensation, there’s style and there’s substance and a great big dollop of skill. Utterly unique and head-and-shoulders above his peers.” (Tony Black, author of Truth Lies Bleeding )“Wow and wow again. CASH OUT gets the 3-E merit: Excellent, enthrallingand with a wicked elegance. I loved it.” (Ken Bruen, best-selling author of The Devil [Minotaur] and other books )“A cold heart is beating in [Greg Bardsley’s] prose, one that suspects there’s nothing much good to say about people. Still…you can say it with a sly wink that lets everyone know we’re all in on the same grim joke. Bardsley gives us the wink and delivers the black punchline.” (Charlie Huston, best-selling author of The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death and The Shotgun Rule [Ballantine], as well as the Henry Thompson trilogy and the Joe Pitt casebooks )“Bardsley’s work will be around a long time. He forces you to remember. … My prediction: As soon as the novels start rolling out, Bardsley will be as big as Palahniuk. But the critics will like him a lot more.” (Anthony Neil Smith, author of Hogdoggin and Yellow Medicine [Bleak House] )“Bardsley’s writing always makes me laugh and long for more. His characters are outrageous… yet beneath their antics and quirks are kernels of people we recognize from our everyday lives - or would, before Greg let them run wild. CASH OUT provides a delicious romp… I loved every minute of it.” (Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, autho )“Greg Bardley’s writing is so good it’s criminal. The guy has style. And a wicked imagination. And nobody has more fun with his characters than Mr. Bardsley does.” (Al Riske, author of Precarious and Sabrina's Window [Luminis] )“Greg Bardsley. Remember his name. Mark my words, he’s gonna be huge.” (Jedidiah Ayres, Ransom Notes: The Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog )“Irreverent, surreal, utterly original. Bardsley is a genre unto himself.” (Keith Rawson, editor of Crimefactory magazine )“Greg Bardsley is one of the funniest writers, period. Someone once asked me to describe Greg’s writing and all I could come up with was it’s like being stuffed into a gag bag full of razor blades and getting tossed into the gibbons cage at the zoo.” (Kieran Shea, author of "The Lifeguard Method" [Ellery Queen] and other stories )“Cash Out is a wonderful combination of the bizarre, hysterical, and gruesome. Bardsley is a rising star in the world of crime fiction.” (Mark Richardson, author of "Tattoo Woman" and other stories )