THE SWISS ACCOUNT

A heavyset novel in which some of Waller's earlier bad writing has been trimmed down, reintroducing the bank UBCO of The Family but with no Mafia connections this time--just a few Japanese padding around in the background when Margit Staeli returns to Basle just before her thirtieth birthday which will put her in control of a formidable conglomerate--not just Suchard chocolate. Margit has been educated for the future the Staeli Clan doesn't want her to have--at Harvard where she first met Matt Burris, an UBCO representative. There's romance--can an American poor boy marry a rich Swiss miss with a liberated head on her shoulders; there's a prearranged fiance, also a banker, Erich, who's lost his less good head over an expensively preserved older woman; there's the interference run by UBCO's Palmer, a debit to any side; and more, much more, with some scene-setting about the wealthiest city in the safest country in the world where for all its new elegance, two Mercedes and one Jaguar in every garage, they're still pushing all their food in the middle of the plate. . . . Even a large helping like this one, for that Diner's Club readership.