I never thought of global financial markets as a great subject for fiction, but Peter Mountford made them one with his first book, A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism. Now he’s back with The Dismal Science, in which an aging vice president of the World Bank suddenly loses everything. Forget the brainy financial prognostications of Don DeLillo; in Mountford’s stories, capitalism hits you in the gut. Bankers and novelists unite!

– Brian Hurley