Steve Pantini

An audit as an act of courage -- that's what the plot of Shadow Partners centers on, with an accountant for a hero, though it's never quite clear if it was idealism or just dogged nerdy desire to get accountants straight that made him pursue his investigations despite a stop order from the highest corporate and possibly governmental level.

Reporters are after this story, and we hear it mostly from them. But its setting in primarily Washington, D.C., so lawyers and politicians figure also, and more and more auditors...

And waste, anathema to accountants, figures so prominently it might just be what the novel is about, not just money but attention and effort and great chunks of life and of human feeling. All is framed as a reporter's quest which moves things along nicely through pretty unsavory territory with an appropriately understated ending, perfect for those who don't believe in happy ones.… (mehr)