Jeffrey Marshall, Squeeze Plays (Atmosphere Press 2022)
Corbin van Sloot is the busy CEO of Whitehall Bank, with everything going for him, including executive stress. As well as the everyday crises CEOs normally face, he has to manoeuvre a leadership structure that is split across New York and London, helped by his able assistant Angela.
The bank is reconsidering its loan to media company Star Enterprises, led by Winston Crumm, though he is effectively just a figurehead. Winston’s spending habits are profligate, and his ‘default setting’ is ‘smugness’. He loves posing for photos at black-tie soirées with his wife, designer Adrienne Rogers. He idly tells magazine baron Martin Hargreaves the fib that Adrienne is designing a new autumn line.
In London, Corbin’s counterpart Sir Reginald’s (nickname Regicide) secretary Agatha wakes him from his afternoon power nap. He has just bought land adjacent to his country house in Essex, land which is coveted by the wildlife sanctuary next door.
Corbin hears on the news that Winston is being sued by a tenant in his building. Corbin’s one-evening-a-week mistress Larissa is back in France visiting family, Corbin and family are holidaying in Nantucket. His wife Patricia catches daughter Morgan in possession of some Ecstasy. Winston learns from his conference call that Star Enterprises is in debt to the tune of $15 million, and Sir Reginald has taken the painful decision to pull the loan, just before suffering a massive stroke.
Russian financier Maxim Ripovsky knows an opportunity when he sees one. An underling takes some cream off the top of a deal; Maxim’s thugs smash his hand. Maxim reaches out to Winston with the offer of an anonymous investment, with conditions. Soon, he demands a seat on the board.
The Van Sloop daughter Amanda has been arrested on a demo, and one of Martin Hargreaves’ gossip mags covers it. Winston’s and his mistress Larissa’s lovemaking is being secretly filmed.
Financial journalist Bob Mandell considers himself ‘a big game hunter’. He’s on the case, ferreting out the identity of Star Enterprises’ mystery investor as Maxim Ripovsky.
A bit metaphor-heavy, right from the first line, with a percentage of them quite chiché, some not very appropriate in meaning to their tenor (original subject).
The story is satisfactorily complex; the pace is good; and the characters are wonderful, interconnecting in surprising ways as the plot thickens.
This review was originally written for Reedsy Discovery.
Susie Helme 
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