The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers, By Paul Torday

In a lively credit-crunch satire, Paul Torday reprises the comic voice of his successful debut Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

The book's genial narrator, Hector Chetwode-Talbot, known as Eck, is an ex-army officer. He now works as a "greeter" for a hedge fund run by an old school friend, Bilbo Mountwilliams – a charming player whose family crest shows a cat licking its paws, alongside the motto "Semper plus".

On one of his trips to the south of France, Eck meets Charlie Summers, a marketing man trying to sell Japanese dog-food to the world.

While Bilbo bobs around on inflated credit, Charlie's hapless business venture proves not so watertight. This debonair and elegantly written farce borrows from Woodhouse and Sharpe.