was being held and tortured. At the end, Eastin, Juanita and her daughter, Estella, move out of the state where both get new jobs. Also featured is Edwina D'Orsey, the head of FMA's flagship downtown branch, through whom a reader gains much insight into day-to-day branch banking, and her husband, Lewis, who writes a financial newsletter. As readers increasingly appreciate Vandervoort, the protagonist, they learn of his troubled personal life. His advancement in banking circles has come as his marriage is failing; his wife Celia is confined to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Vandervoort is shown as having developed a relationship with Margot Bracken, who is depicted as a radical attorney and political activist many years his junior; her attitudes sometime conflicts with Vandervoort's role at FMA. She is also related to Edwina D'Orsey, as she is her first cousin. Meanwhile, Vandervoort's antagonist, Heyward, is depicted as a devout Episcopalian who strives to maintain an air of personal integrity and morality, only to slowly sacrifice them both in his pursuit of the presidency of FMA. As these men pursue their battle for the soon-to-be-vacant position of CEO, various issues involving the banking industry, such as credit card fraud, embezzlement, inflation, subprime lending, and insider trading are discussed. First Mercantile American is eventually revealed to have a doppelganger in the form of an organized crime family. The fight for control of the bank continues under the darkening clouds of an approaching economic recession. Roscoe is manipulated into making a large, illegal and toxic loan to Supranational Corporation (SuNatCo), a multinational conglomerate (loosely based on International Telephone and Telegraph, with certain elements of Penn Central) run by the powerful, unscrupulous CEO, G. G. Quartermain. It turns out that SuNatCo is on the verge of bankruptcy, using the bank's loan in a vain attempt to keep afloat. The ensuing scandal causes a bank run and panic among depositors, shareholders, and employees, with the perpetrator committing suicide rather than facing the consequences of his actions. By the vote of the board of directors, Vandervoort assumes the position of CEO of the half-ruined bank. Real-life background One of the banking innovations that Hailey mentioned in The Moneychangers is Docutel, an automated teller machine, based on real technology that was issued a patent in 1974 in the United States. In the novel, Jill Peacock, a journalist, interviewed First Mercantile American Bank executive VP, Alexander Vandervoort, in a