Devil in Pinstripes is Ravi Subramanian’s third novel after “If God was a Banker” and “I bought the Monk’s Ferrari”. But this is his second attempt at talking about his life and experiences at Citibank which he did pretty well in “If God was a Banker”. So does his third book manage to capture the interest of the readers? Let’s see.

At the outset, the reader is introduced to Amit Sharma, your usual IIM types and his wife of 13 years, Chanda. Amit is a high flying executive at New York International Bank – NYB (Read Citibank) and Chanda who though a biotechnologist but finally decides to shift her career because of marriage and moves to Standard Chartered Bank. Aditya Bhatnagar (A bit similar to Aditya Rao in his first book) whose his mentor and the top guy at NYB and Gowri, the head at NYB Financial Services (Read CitiFinancial) are other two main characters in the story. Boardroom politics, backbiting, autocracy, corporate governance, ethics in business – Devil in Pinstripes has it all.

The story moves at a pretty good pace at places but that is not always the case. Loans, Credit collections and other banking lingo will not interest a vast section of the populace. After a particular point in time, the corporate politics gets a bit too repetitive and too much. And this is what affects the structure of the story. Ravi effortlessly weaves the present and the past and does well in capturing the attention of the viewers. But in many parts the attention starts wavering.

Whether its Amit’s as the quintessential & suave IIM executive or Chanda as his wife who suffers from the politics around, the characters are well defined. But Aditya as the scheming and manipulative chief and Gowri as one who ran his empire like a fiefdom are the best.

If you love banking or want to take a sneak peak into the world of office politics, go for it. But others can avoid.

Rating – 2.5/5