This exhilaratingly lowbrow first novel concentrates on money and lust or, to put it more bluntly, sex and the City. Its young heroine or chief victim — or is she actually the villain? — has already joined an investment bank and had her first one-night stand a few minutes before this savage saga begins.
Melanie is in her early twenties: a beautiful, sexy, grumpy, materialistic, high-octane whizz-kid who hated Christmas Day even as a child. As we soon learn, she’s far keener on sex than romance and makes no secret of her addiction to alcohol. But that’s only half the picture. She’s also an adrenalin-rich workaholic with a bafflingly instinctive grasp of financial markets, corporate events, spreadsheets, hedge funds, networking initiatives and even stock- market crashes. In a matter of months, she has risen through the ranks, become a vice-president of her bank, built up a fan club — and been branded ‘a fucking idiot’ by one of her bosses.
As this caffeine- and nicotine-spattered horror story gathers momentum, we meet any number of fossils, bitches, shits, sluts and scumbags — their words, not mine — and at least one chortling banker who looks as though he’s come straight out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue.
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