It’s not Paul Murray’s settings or themes — decadent aristocrats, clerical sex abuse, the financial crisis — that mark him out as original, it’s his handling: the wild plotting, the witty dialogue and the eccentricity of his characters. The follow-up to his widely admired second novel Skippy Dies swaps the adolescent funk of a Catholic boys’ boarding school for the testosterone whiff of a fictional investment bank in Dublin. The Bank of Torabundo rode out the demise of the Celtic Tiger thanks to its cautious and effective CEO, but he has now been replaced by a flamboyant financial genius whose last bank collapsed in tatters.
Claude Martingale, a French analyst, advises clients on prudent investments, which frequently pits him against sociopathic star trader Howie: ‘Crazy Frog, what the cock are you telling custies about Tarmalat?… I’m trying to sell them Tarmalat, you fucking dunce!’ Claude is as surprised as anyone to be approached by a novelist looking for a real-life protagonist for the bank-heist thriller he is writing.
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