The Gatekeeper is a novel that takes you inside the C-Suite of a large regional bank during the heady days that led up to the economic collapse.
Mayhem prevails in the Executive Suite when a hard-charging bank founder is unexpectedly replaced by an unqualified, egocentric socialite. Through an unimaginable series of events, Whitney Cogswell, becomes the bank’s CEO. With no banking experience, he has just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Think The Wolf of Wall Street meets The Big Short. His assistant
Dee Dee Davino is appointed to protect him from the vultures, and keep him from making any catastrophic decisions. Her heroic efforts keep him afloat despite his over-inflated self-image. Cogswell mistakenly thinks the bank’s success is all due to his deft handling of his role. However, he is doomed to failure as his errors cannot be contained. The members of the Executive Leadership Team each think that they should be CEO, due to their banking experience, and plot to undermine Cogswell’s performance. At the same time, they seek every opportunity to get past Davino to plead their case to replace him as CEO. And the conspiracy only becomes more complicated with the exposure of the love interests and sexual exploitation
within their group.
The bank attains unprecedented growth with Dee Dee covering his bungling failures, while keeping the other bank executives at bay. The pace becomes blistering as the dubious triumphs multiply exponentially in every banking sector. But can its incompetent management team handle the unbridled success? Can Dee Dee survive as the gatekeeper of a battleground littered with the excesses of illicit sex, drug abuse, character assassination and political intrigue? Can she navigate the unimaginable catastrophes, high-stake scandals and the country’s economic collapse?
The relevant subject of this contemporary novel exposes many of the underlying societal depravities existent in today’s business world, but that you would never have expected to uncover at an upstanding, well-respected bank.
Sisti is a good pulp fiction writer. I mean that with the greatest of respect. He writes in a sharp entertaining way, to the point style that draws unrepentantly on those characters that surround us in real life.”
Richard Bunning – Successful author of dozens of books