"While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems--and neither is Claude's employer, the Investment Bank of Torabundo, which...

Falling in love as Yale students and moving to New York City in 2008, hedge fund employee Evan is embroiled in a deal that risks everything he has worked for, while nonprofit employee Julia reconnects with someone from her past who represents a different kind of life. For Evan, a scholarship student from a rural Canadian town, Yale is a whole new world, and Julia-- blond, beautiful, and rich-- fits perfectly into the future he's envisioned. Evan...

"The fundamental motive for financial innovation is not to make the system work better, but to avoid regulation and oversight. This is not a bug of the financial system, but a built-in feature. The president of the US is not a tax avoider because he is an especially fraudulent financier; he's a tax avoider because he is a wealthy man in a system premised on such deceit. Finance is an industry of sabotage. This book is a brilliant, intellectual detective...