Buying In

The world of high finance provides a thrilling setting for Hemphill’s fine debut about survival in a cutthroat business where millions of dollars are at stake and the wrong comment can cost you your job. Sophie Landgraf, from smalltown Massachusetts, lands a lucrative Wall Street job out of college as an analyst for Sterling, while her college boyfriend struggles to make ends meet at an entry-level position at NPR. Sophie befriends a colleague, Vasu Mehta, who, after seven years on the job, is used to the grueling work but longs to spend more time with his family. Ethan Pearce, their department’s managing director, is a brilliant, suave, and cold-hearted wheeler and dealer who throws Sophie for a loop by bringing her into a major merger of aluminum companies. She forges a genuine connection with one of the deal’s main players, AlumiCorp CEO Jake Hutchinson, who worked his way up from the plant floor 23 years prior. The author, who paid her own dues at Lehman Brothers and other firms, clearly knows her way around Wall Street, but, more importantly, can make us care about her characters’ successes and failures, against a formidable backdrop rife with competition, backstabbing, and soul-searching. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Nov.)