After William Boyd made loss adjusting...erm...sexy?...in his novel Armadillo, Dex Cameron has decided to do the same for actuaries. Yes, actuaries - those gallant men and women who measure everything in life with a slide rule.
Cameron is a pseudonym of Mike Ramsay, a semi-retired actuary who has worked in life and pensions most of his life. His novel Embedded Values touches upon "several financial careers" including a character who audits life companies, an investment banker, a property developer and "a chef with no accusations of cooking the books".
The book's jacket says it all - it has everything a modern work of fiction needs: ambition, greed, success, love, and for a book about the life and pensions business "failure and sorrow".
Plaudits have come from across the literary spectrum. The Cornish Times called it "colourful and highly readable"; the Helston News and Advertiser said the book was "well written, entertaining, gripping and addictive"; while the North/Mid-Cornwall Advertiser gushed "like an old friend - one you'll keep wanting to meet again and again".
Backchat was left quite speechless.
Embedded Values is published by Clear Water Books, priced £10.99:
www.clearwaterbooks.com .
