Alan "Ace" Greenberg cho his nickname to improve his chances with girls at the University of Missouri. But it is an apt (1) of his wading skills on Wall Street. This week, as the 73-year-old (2) down (3) chairman of Bear Stearns, the investment bank where he has worked since 1949 is in a high. It (4) an increa in post-tax profits in the cond quarter of 43% on a year earlier, (5) a time when many of its Wall Street rivals have (6) . On June 26th Merrill Lynch (7) a warning that its profits in the cond quarter would fall by half, far (8) of expectations. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have also reported lower profits. Strange that this surprid. (9) Alan Greenspan's frenetic cuts (10) interest rates, times are good for underwriters and waders of bonds, core activities for Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, (11) also recorded a sharp increa in profits. It has been a terrible (12) for equity underwriters and for advirs on the small amounts of mergers and acquisitions (M＆A) this year. Merrill, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are three of the investment banks that gained (13) during the boom in equity and M＆A business, and they are now (14) the most. Of the three, Merrill is weakest in bonds. It cut (15) its fixed-income activities after the collap of Lung-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998. As it happens, both Bear Stearns and Lehman have long been criticid for their weakness in equities. Mr Greenberg is famous for worrying about even the price of a paper-clip at Bear Stearns. This ud to em terribly (16) ,but the days other Wall Street firms are (17) about costs. Lay-offs are (18) though not yet alarmingly-not least, becau banks saw how Merrill Lynch lost (19) when the markets rebounded quickly after the LTCM crisis. Still, if few (20) of improvement show soon, expect real blood-letting on Wall Street. |
"The news hit the British High Commission in Nairobi at nine-thirty on a Monday morning. Sandy Woodrow took it like a bullet, jaw rigid, chest out, smack through his divided English heart." Crikey. So that's how you take a bullet. Poor old Sandy. His English heart must be really divided now. This deliriously hardboiled opening ts the tone for what's to come. White mischief? Pshaw! White plague, more like it. Sandy Woodrow is head of chancery at the British High Commission in Nairobi. The news that neatly subdivides his heart as the novel opens is the death of a young, beautiful and idealistic lawyer turned aid worker named Tessa Quayle. Tessa has been murdered for learning too much about the dishonest practices of a large **pany operating in Africa. Her body is found at Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. Tessa's husband. Justin, is also a British diplomat stationed in Nairobi. Until now Justin has been an obedient civil rvant, content to toe the official line—in short, a hard worker. But all that changes in the aftermath of his wife's murder. Full of righteous anger, he resolves to get to the bottom of it, come what may. "The Constant Gardener" has got plenty of ten moments and sudden twists **es completely with shadowy figures lurking in the bush. There is a familiar tone of gentlemanly world- weariness to it all, which should keep Mr. le Carre's fans happy. But the novel is also an impassioned attack on the corruption which allows Africa to be ud as a sort of laboratory for the testing of new medicines. Elwhere, Mr. le Carte has denounced the "corporate cam, hypocrisy, corruption and greed" of the pharmaceutical industry. This position is excitingly dramatized in his book, even if the abus he rails against are not exactly breaking news. In other respects "The Constant Gardener" is less satisfactory. Mr. le Carte can't em to make up his mind whether he's writing a thriller or an expo. Ina recent article for the New Yorker he described his creative process as "a kind of deliberately twisted journalism, where nothing is quite what it is" and where any encounter may be "freely recast for its dramatic possibilities". Such is the method employed in "The Constant Gardener", who heroine. Mr. le Carte says, was inspired by an old friend of his. One or two prominent real-life Kenyan politicians are mentioned often enough to become, in effect. "characters" in the story. And in a note at the end of the book Mr. le Cane thanks the various diplomats, doctors, pharmaceutical experts and old Africa hands who gave him advice and assistance, though in the same breath he insists that the staff of the British mission in Nairobi are no doubt all jolly good eggs who bear no remblance whatsoever to the heartless scoundrels in his story. There's nothing wrong with a bit of artistic licen, Of cour. But Mr. le Carre's equivocation about the novel's relation to fact undermines its effectiveness as a work of social criticism, which is pretty clearly what it aspires to be. "The Constant Gardener" is a cracking thriller but a flawed exploration of a complicated t of political issues. |
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