“This was an unknown country. Here the carpets were thick and pastel-shaded, the secretaries soft of voice, the doors closed automatically with a sigh, faint as the breath of a patient under heavy anesthesia.”
But under this plush, muted atmosphere was quite a different world, a world of ugly deceptions which you pretended to ignore, a world in which you shook hands with your fingers crossed, a world in which words like “ethics” and “honesty” had more than one meaning.
Sent to London by the head of his company’s international division, Chris Marshall decided to study the facts of big-business life. Some he had already learned from his embittered predecessor; others he learned from pretty Jane Lancing, who was everything a good secretary should be and more. But Chris Marshall also had a lot to learn about himself — things not even Jane Lancing could tell him.
Rich in drama and with a brilliantly drawn international setting, Means to an End is a tautly written, exciting novel about a young man’s rough-and-tumble initiation into the world of big business.
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