Martin Vander Weyer

An account of the crash of the City Equitable insurance firm in the 1921-1922 period, engineered by Gerard Bevan, a scion of a well-known banking family (he was related to some of the Barclays of Barclay's Bank). The author does a very good job of marching through Bevan's career, and the aftermath thereof, including some interesting sidelights on how the affair turns up in literature (one of Galsworthy's Forsythe Saga novels, White Monkey). The author seems quite interested in Bevan's poetry, even though little of it has a direct bearing on the case; it's extensively quoted. The only real complaint I have about the book is that the author does engage in a lot of speculation in certain situations as to how things might have occurred, which can get mildly annoying at times. Some of the speculation is pure spitballing. But in general, it's a good book on financial finagling, especially since it touches on some of the other celebrated cases of the 1890-1930 period, like Hatry and Bottomley.… (altro)