PENNY CANDY: The Culture of Corporate Theft

by Marjory Babb

In 1980, twenty-eight-year-old Sue Streicker lands a job as the first female attorney at a large Amarillo, Texas, law office. She promptly skyrockets to success, but a series of sordid entanglements, coupled with an unfaithful husband, prompt her to make a change and take a position with one of Houston’s most elite law firms.

Almost immediately, however, Sue succumbs to a young and powerful partner who manipulates her into aiding his takeover of the company. The pending fallout, which throws the business into turmoil amid the banking and real estate crash of the late 1980s, ultimately sees Sue come face-to-face with a devastating lawsuit that shatters her dreams of becoming a top lawyer at a top firm.

Distraught and disillusioned, she reinvents herself as the general counsel for a bank. But this new venture is not everything she hoped it would be. Sue is once again confronted with corruption and fraud—and those who clash with titans rarely emerge unscathed.

Written in the aftermath of the Great Recession and loosely based on the author’s own experiences, Penny The Culture of Corporate Theft is legal fiction at its finest, exploring the corporate dynamics of fraud, ethical dilemmas, and gender discrimination.

295 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 17, 2015