Shadow Banking

by C.M. Albright

Set over fifteen years in the heart of global finance, Shadow Banking follows the lives of City hopefuls, as they try to wheel, deal and back stab their way to billions. Remember: life’s a trade…

It is 1994. The City is on the crest of a wave.

When Al Denham turns up to his first day at City banking giant Trenchart Colville, he thinks he’s there to start a job. But in fact he’s at the beginning of a journey that will change his life for ever.

Al is joined by a ragtag combination of the brash and the charming, the box-tickers and the risk-takers. There’s razor-sharp New Yorker, Miles Ratner, an enigma despite his infectious charm. Fergal Quinn, fresh from his father’s Dublin fishmonger’s, full of tales of booze and hangovers, with a punchline for every story. And Imogen Green – beautiful, well-connected, and with a playful side that can prove quite the distraction. As they race to get ahead, their lives will entwine in ways none of them could have predicted.

Spanning turbulent financial markets, a technological revolution, and the financial crisis that brought the West to its knees, this is a novel about friendship, love, rivalry, betrayal and murder. This Life meets The Wolf of Wall St, Shadow Banking will make you question everything you think you know about trading floors and the people who inhabit them. In the end it all comes down to one thing: money. And whoever has the most when they die, wins…

C. M. Albright is a pseudonym for a senior figure working in the City. He has been a trader in the financial markets for twenty-five years, living and working all around the world. He has had a ringside seat during a period of unparalleled economic and political turmoil and is perfectly placed to give an insider’s perspective on this glamorous, dangerous and yet enduringly mysterious world. He divides his time between homes in London and the Cotswolds.

375 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 28, 2014

Reviews

[David Highton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts off as a bit of a soap opera featuring graduate trainnes in a City investment bank in 1994, and only becomes a thriller in the final quarter as the sub-prime market starts to hit and the 2008 recession kicks in. However, the story did move with pace and was a pleaeant enough read