The best way I can think of to describe this book is to get you to imagine the film The Big Short being re-written and directed by the Coen brothers. What you would end up with is a story about banks and money markets that teeters perilously close to farce, but on reflection is frighteningly close to things that have actually happened in the world of high finance.
This is very cleverly written and is humerous throughout, although I would stop short of describing it as hilarious (as in the description on the cover, provided by the Guardian). The central character is a Frenchman called Claude who works as a financial analyst for the Bank of Torabundo Headquarters situated in Dublin. After the death of his parents he finds himself alone in the world and spends most of his waking hours crunching numbers for the bank. There's nothing interesting about Claude, and this is exactly why he is targeted by an odd little man, who cliams to be a writer, and is looking for an 'Everyman' who works inside a bank to help gather background information.
Claude is flattered to be chosen as the inspiration for a book and it isn't long before he starts seeing the work of fiction as a road map for his own life and he encourages the writer, Paul, to gather as much detail as he needs. This includes shadowing Claude at work, although Paul never seems to be doing much writing. Perhaps he has an alterior motive for getting inside the bank?
Claude and his colleagues are highly paid but the pressure is always on to stay ahead of the game and find new ways to either keep their own bank afloat of prop up the Irish economy. There is a lot of talk about hedge funds and shorting the market, but in amongst all that is a story of unrequited love and the pusuit of dreams. Overall, I was very impressed by it and I will be looking out for The Bee sting which is another of Murray's books that I have ignored for too long.
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