Arthur Hailey (1920–2004)

Another widereaching story from Hailey, this time dealing with banks.

As the day begins at First Mercantile American Bank, so do the high-stake risks, the public scandals, and the private affairs. It is the inside world where secret million-dollar deals are made, manipulated, and sweetened with sex by the men and women who play to win.

It's a little dated (written around 1975, and just after Watergate), but the underlying principles are still the same - the moving of money, the gold standard, the relationship of the bank managers to the tellers, investigations into wide fraud etc.

Hailey is showing his strengths in showing both the wider view, plus the small personal details. There's the security men, the Branch and the Bank Mangers, the tellers and enough background story to explain why they do what they do, and the principles they adhere too… (more)

The book that launched the TV series of the same name.[return][return]Once again displaying Hailey's ability to show both the large and small detail of a big entity (being a hotel, or a bank or an airport).[return][return]This tells the story from the point of view of the manager of a medium sized independant hotel that is slightly down on its luck and on the verge of being brought out by a large chain of faceless hotels. The small things (the small frauds, the fire alarm causing evacuations, the tarts touting for business in the bar) to the larger issues, such as trying to keep the hotel afloat whilst preventing the hostile takeover. [return][return]You can imagine that the overall day to day details and challenges of running a hotel havent really changed so although this was written 40 years ago it hasnt really dated that much… (more)