MONEY

Leighton Pugh masterfully delivers Emile Zola's heady mix of urbane prose, playful dialogue, and meticulous descriptions of stock market trading and manipulation in this one-of-a-kind cautionary tale. It's the roaring 1860s of the Second French Empire. Growth and prosperity are in the air, the Suez Canal is almost complete, and a devious stock market speculator plans to artificially inflate shares of Banque Universelle to create billions. Pugh is especially adept at capturing a sense of foreboding as the speculator's checkered past of bankruptcy, political intrigue, and avarice threatens to bring France's financial system to its knees. Although published in 1893, this eighteenth novel in Zola's Dickens-like Rougon-Macquart series describes a world of unsustainable growth, social stratification, and sexual abuse that sounds altogether too modern. B.P. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2025]