Tom Howell, an editor at a struggling publishing company, travels to New York to lead a panel discussion. There, he copes with a crazy boss, flirtatious colleagues, a corporate weasel, and a scheduling disaster, while experiencing serendipitous adventure in the Big Apple. On his trip, Tom also struggles with the themes and preoccupations of his life. These include the demands of his maddening but involving job, his determination to be a good father, and the nagging possibilities of his literary talents, which are captured in a novel he has started but nearly forsaken. As an unappreciated...

Office politics... real estate deals... fathers and sons... control freaks... marriage and family... ambition... competition... the accumulation and exercise of corporate power... these are the subjects that Ethan Cooper addresses in IN CONTROL, the first novel in the Corporate Quartet, his tetralogy of workplace fiction. In IN CONTROL, Harry Kramer, the Chairman and CEO of a major bank, finances the construction of a sixty-story office tower, even though he knows the market for office space will be saturated when the building is finished. He then pulls a young executive named Gordon Elliam...

Managing up... tweaking the numbers... office liaisons... M&A... office politics... ethical challenges... the capriciousness of success... these are the subjects that Ethan Cooper addresses in SMOOTH IN MEETINGS, the second novel in the Corporate Quartet, his tetralogy of workplace fiction. In SMOOTH IN MEETINGS, a management shake-up blindsides Ward Wittman, a senior executive at a high tech company. Now, Ward has to prove his worth to a tough new boss, who has high expectations for Ward's fading product line. Compounding this stress is Ward's bittersweet family life, which features two...

At the behest of his stepmother, Charlie Wayne, an unemployed banker and baby boomer, visits his 93 year-old father in Florida. Initially, the wealthy and independent Wriston Wayne, the former CEO of a major regional bank, seems as sharp and tenacious as ever. But then Wriston, while parking his Cadillac, loses control and the tippling Charlie, a dutiful son, is obliged to raise this issue: Should his father continue to drive? Subsequent interaction in the Wayne family reveals patterns of tenacity, chicanery, love, and denial, as the men and their wives bargain about the future. This family...