RULE BY PROXY

“An engrossing and dramatic tale of the business world…a fine insider’s novel.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“Authentic and interesting…a cracking good story.”
—Barron’s

“In its sophistication, moral complexity, and world-wide sadness, readers may be reminded of Marquand and Louis Auchinchloss.”
—Scripps Howard Syndicate

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Like alchemists striving to transform lead to gold, the corporate conglomerate builders of the late 20th Century transformed control of relatively small businesses into gigantic corporate empires. Riding the wave of a booming stock market, they waved the sorcerer’s want of debt leverage and a bewildering assortment of securities to materialize fantastic wealth and power out of thin air. Some of the kingdoms endured, but many crumbled, leaving financial disaster and personal tragedy amid the rubble.

Rule by Proxy is a novel about those days of magical wealth and disastrous overreaching. It is filled with an insider’s expertise about the wheeling and dealing. And though the Byzantine tactics of manipulation and management wield their own fascination, Rule by Proxy is primarily concerned with the men and women whose ambitions and self-respect become enmeshed in corporate energies stronger than anything else in their lives. It is a novel about how people react to the dream of power and how much of their souls they are willing to margin to achieve it.