On a good day, the world of political lobbying is complex and cutthroat. Ed Matthews should know: he's been a foreign policy lobbyist for years, working for a firm that specializes in "small countries with big problems." Although his wife, Charlotte, is anxious for him to stop working "for everyone but America," Ed can't bring himself to give up just yet. So when his uncle, a powerful U.S. senator, calls him up to the Hill and hands him a lucrative new client, Ed dares to hope he's finally made it to the big leagues. For the first time, he is in the driver's seat, not his power-hungry boss, lobbying on behalf of the Dungan American Friendship Society. He tackles the job with a newfound vigor-not realizing until too late that the Dungan is a sham, a cover-up for a political conspiracy of epic proportions. Caught up in an intricate web of deception, Ed scrambles to salvage his career and his personal life in this boisterous, fast-paced, and often raucous novel by a former D.C. lobbyist.
James T. Shea (b. 1955) spent fourteen years as a foreign aid and foreign policy lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Jim left Washington in the late 1990s, a time when the increasing polarization of American politics was quickly bleeding into the foreign aid business, and the intellectual rigor as well as the fun going out of it. Much of the rich detail and colorful stories that make up the backdrop of Jim's novel Corruptions reflect actual experiences in Washington, although the novel's action takes place in 2007.
Corruptions took shape over the decade following Jim's departure from Washington, while he was working in higher education fundraising, first at the University of California, San Diego and then at Dartmouth College. Those experiences provided Jim with rich material for his second novel, which will take place at a dysfunctional university.
