A blue-blooded London-based global investment bank is in trouble after major financial irregularities in the Far East. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out the inspiration for Paul Kilduff's first novel, Square Mile, a thriller based on low deeds in high places in the city. His hero Anthony Carlton works for investment bank Steen Odenberg where he has to know "a call from a put, a currency swap rate from an interest rate swap...the cable rate from the Swissy rate and an over-the-counter warrant from a listed equity". Carlton is ambitious. Working his way doggedly up the gilded pole, he starts the book in clear awe of the world of finance. But he isn't so much impressed by its impact on the global economy as he is by the stylish dress codes of his colleagues and their six or even seven-figure salaries.The author trades profitably on insider knowledge of city institutions and global financial systems garnered during his six years spent working with a US securities house. We learn much about the "fine check lilac shirts, bold stripes, occasional braces, yellow ties, heavy dangling cufflinks, doubled breasted suits", that his hero aspires to. But the detailed listing of brand names and accessories as an index of social values is a trick that has been done many times before, not least in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire Of The Vanities and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho. The difference is that they did it to make a political point. You feel that Kilduff just likes expensive kit.When a director of Steen Odenberg is found murdered, Carlton is drawn reluctantly into the police investigation and embarks on a voyage of discovery about his own uncritical acceptance of this gold-plated world. In other hands this could be the literary equivalent of mogadon. But Kilduff's prose style, relying on the rapid delivery of short sentences coupled with a wealth of detail--mostly about wealth--and a pacey plot, makes this a thoroughly entertaining and gripping read--even if you're not interested in the world of high finance. --Alex Benady