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 f...