Square Mile [Paperback]

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

'SQUARE MILE offers a complete initiation into the financial City ... Kilduff's plot is immaculately conceived' -- Law Society Gazette 'An attractively written first novel, whose strength lies in the creation of the bank's atmosphere and the detailed analysis of financial jiggery-pokery.' -- Evening Standard 'A slick, punchy thriller by a banking insider, full of financial know-how' -- Daily Mail 'Kilduff writes with authority ... He handles the world of high finance and soft-top BMWs with aplomb' -- Irish Times 'An entertaining debut with an all-too-believable ending' -- Sunday Telegraph 'The most gut-tightening, enthralling tale I have read for a long time' -- Dublin Commuting Times 'A gripping read. Great pace, exciting, well-researched ... If you liked John Grisham's The Firm, then you only need to know one thing. This is better!' -- Accountancy Ireland

'A slick, punchy thriller by a banking insider, full of financial know-how'

'SQUARE MILE offers a complete initiation into the financial City . . . Kilduff's plot is immaculately conceived'

'The most gut-tightening, enthralling tale I have read for a long time'

'An entertaining debut with an all-too-believable ending'

When a director of respected investment bank, Steen Odenberg & Co, is discovered in his luxury Wapping penthouse strangled with his own silk Hermes tie, Steen's employee Anthony Carlton finds himself reluctantly drawn into the investigations surrounding the death. All his enquiries seem to lead to a mysterious company known as EPIC, the European Property Investment Corporation, and the trail takes him to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. Anthony is about to uncover a fraud and embezzlement scam on a massive scale, and consequently find his life in grave danger.

23 December 1999
I first saw the vision for my thriller, Square Mile, when I came into work one Monday morning at a leading stockbroker in the City of London. A middle-aged investment banker who worked directly opposite me had been murdered in his Spitalfields apartment at the weekend, stabbed several times with a serrated blade. The murderer was never caught, despite the crime and suspect photo being featured on BBC's Crimewatch TV programme. It started me thinking. What if his death was connected to his work as a big-shot corporate financier? This was the genesis of the novel.

At the time I was frequently travelling overseas to the USA and Far East on business and buying chunky paperbacks in Heathrow. There were many thriller genres on the stacked shelves of W H Smith but they were all police, detective, serial killer, legal, pathologist, and forensic scientist thrillers. It seemed no one was writing good financial thrillers. There are 300,000 people who work in the City, so many more who bought and sold shares daily, and I wondered if they too were looking for something different to read. So when I got the time, I started work on my Dell PC at home, wrote some chapters on and off over a two year period, reworked and edited the text, submitted sample chapters to a literary agent and sold Square Mile immediately.

I hope the novel achieves a number of my objectives. I wanted to write a challenging who-dunnit mystery with good pace and many plot twists. I wanted to write about the types of varied characters who work in and around the City. I wanted to explore their interests, ambitions, conflicts and lifestyle. I wanted to expose the inner workings and dark underbelly of the City but in such a way that I never lectured to the reader, but involved them in a mutual discovery. Lastly, I wanted to take the reader on a journey to other locations I had visited to give the novel a truly international breadth. Most of all I wrote a book that I'd like to read!

You can let me know by email if you enjoy the book. I get many emails from readers and most love the plot and characters. If you're one of those readers, you might also enjoy my second City thriller, The Dealer, published in March 2000.

Born in Dublin in 1964, Paul Kilduff moved to London in 1989 where he spent six years working with a leading US securities house and an international Far East-based banking group. Paul returned to Dublin in 1995 where he now works for a US global investment bank. SQUARE MILE is his first novel.