It takes a lot of stamina to survive the daily grind at a large investment bank in New York City. First of all, there’s who I have to deal with: the traders. As a research analyst, I spend my day gathering information about bonds they want to buy and sell. I have to make sure they know more than our competitors do. So, I’m really good at asking questions and noticing when something is off.

But traders are extremely intense individuals, basically a breed unto themselves. They often resort to bullying if they don’t hear what they want, and have no qualms about publicly chewing someone up and spitting them out with a string of obscenities hurled throughout the process. And then there’s the occasional birthday celebration with colleagues where one of them arranges for a stripper to perform on the trading floor. As a woman, I don’t exactly appreciate their choice of entertainment.

It’s also one of the few places I’ve found that’s a true meritocracy. No fancy pie charts or schmoozing the idiot boss. Your worth is measured in dollars—how much you contribute to the company’s bottom line. To be honest, it’s merciless. You either add value and are paid a huge bonus in return or you’re shown the exit door. Period.

It’s the type of place where anyone can start anywhere and end up at the top. Take Donna. Never without a cigarette in hand and generally enough makeup to be performing in a Broadway musical, her clothes appear to have been purchased from the ultra-final clearance sale rack, the ones that absolutely no one else was willing to buy. She would never have been hired at a regular Fortune 500 company or promoted in a department where customers occasionally visit and polished appearances are important. But on the rough and tumble of the trading floor, she is a highly paid and well-respected analyst because she’s good at what she does.

So am I. But for the first time in my eight-year career, I’m starting to think it may get me in trouble.

Recently, I discovered that a rainmaker at our firm was involved in bringing some shady deals to market. He’s a senior banker who works in a different department. He tried to convince me there’s nothing fraudulent about them, but if I’m right it could be problematic for the company, both in terms of fines and public relations. So, I scheduled a meeting with him, his partners, and an internal lawyer from our firm to get a better understanding of how these bonds are structured.

The meeting didn’t go so well. Partway through, he left in a huff and was discovered in his office a little while later. Dead.

We were all shocked. And yet no one else seems to be bothered by the odd suicide note that was found on his desk, except for me.

I can’t shake this nagging feeling that there’s a killer among us.

Murder Over Broken Bonds, A Wall Street Mystery Book #1
Genre: Traditional
Release: May 2023
Format: Digital
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Anne Scott always knew that working on Wall Street wasn’t for the faint of heart, but she never expected to see a senior investment banker storm out of a meeting and then turn up dead in his office a few minutes later. As she unravels the man’s financial shenanigans, she encounters a web of by shady partners, colleagues who would do almost anything to climb the corporate ladder, and a well-endowed secretary with whom he was having an affair—all had secrets and any might have wanted him dead. With senior management breathing down her neck, she edges closer to the truth. And the killer. But will she become too much of a liability?

Meet the author
Rebecca Saltzer worked as a bond analyst on the trading floor at Lehman Brothers in New York City in the financial heyday of the eighties. Like the protagonist in her novel, she sometimes encountered fraud and other questionable business practices, except in real life, none of it led to murder. In 2021, Rebecca received the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for unpublished writers. When she’s not writing, she enjoys hiking with her two rescue dogs and exploring the great outdoors. Visit Rebecca’s website at saltzerbooks.com.

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