Subversion A Novel - Hardcover

Alderson, T. A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767906578 ISBN 13: 9780767906579

Publisher: Broadway Books, 2001

Synopsis

Rosalind Wilcox has come a long way from the small-town Ohio of her childhood. As the house counsel for a Washington, D.C., investment firm, she scoffs at negotiating, relishes being a dominatrix in bed, and can rattle off the features of various assault rifles without blinking.

But she has a softer side too, as evidenced by her weight-loss program, get-organized program, tobacco-reduction program, and record-breaking one year with the same lover, Marshall, a country gentleman twenty years her senior, a partner in the firm, and her boss. When Marshall is murdered just after Rosalind discovers $3.7 million missing from a company account, she discovers a scandal of corruption that will bring the old boys? network to its knees. Enter a protective old flame from her hometown who has eye-opening information about her missing father?s past, and Rosalind is forced to reevaluate her life at the same time she is called upon to protect it.

Edgy and fast-paced, with dead-on dialogue, Subversion yields a fabulous new spin on sex and work and the single woman. With a blunt, sassy cast of characters you?ll never forget, this is a riveting debut you won?t be able to put down.

?I always hated that word, ?boyfriend,? and I never used to use it. Now, it seems I have to say it, if only to limit the come-ons I have to fend off in the course of a day. But that morning, I had a boyfriend. Even if I couldn?t tell anyone about him. I had a rich boyfriend, a good job, a decent apartment, and the pleasant delusion that I knew the score. I guess I should have stayed in bed.?

About this title

About the Author

T. A. Alderson earned a master?s degree in creative writing from Columbia University and is the author of a collection of short stories, Michelson in the Desert. Now working in the environment division of the Department of Justice, Alderson lives in Maryland.

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for Subversion:

"Subversion is a wicked indulgence, delicious to the very last drop. A parable of appetites?Alderson's attractively zaftig heroine would happily suck the marrow right out of your bones?it's also a sharp-witted political satire: a below-the-Beltway novel such as is seldom seen."
--Madison Smartt Bell

"Rosalind Wilcox is the Camryn Manheim of suspense fiction?that rarity in prose and life, a brainy, beautiful, bad big girl brimming with confidence and damning the torpedoes. Catch
her . . . if you can."
--Jacquelyn Mitchard

Reviews

Long on charm and short on story, Alderson's debut novel charts the rough-and-tumble journey of Rosalind Wilcox, a brash, lusty young attorney who gets ensnarled in an international money-laundering scheme. Wilcox, who disdains legal work but loves the big paycheck, works for Rigel Associates, a small investment house in Washington, D.C. She puts together deals that she only vaguely understands financing contracts for diamond mines in South Africa, power plants in Eastern Europe. The seed money always seems to originate in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. Wilcox suspects something is shady, but she's not very curious, and besides, she's having a fun little fling with one of the firm's partners, Marshall Waverly. But then Waverly is shot dead. The cops say it's suicide, but neither Rosalind nor the FBI believes that. Wilcox soon learns that her lover was informing on his own firm and that Rigel, in fact, is little more than a way station for dirty money. What's more, it turns out that Wilcox's father, who went into hiding six years ago on the eve of his sentencing for major white-collar crimes, is part of the Rigel operation. Because of her relationship with Waverly, Wilcox soon finds herself in danger from the same people who killed him. Alderson, the author of the short story collection Michelson in the Desert, has created a charismatic, well-rounded character in Wilcox. On the outside, she's a sassy tease, but on the inside, she's a woman of introspection and humility. Alderson's writing style comes across a little heavy on the Gen-X vernacular, but it's forceful and fresh. It doesn't compensate, however, for a skeletal and predictable plot (with echoes of The Firm), peopled by flat secondary characters. (Mar. 6)Forecast: A dust jacket with a woman's open lips and, underneath them, a gun; browsers will pick up this novel with the provocative title from the shelves, but will they buy? Yes.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0767906578
• ISBN 13: 9780767906579
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288