Ride a Cockhorse (Hardscrabble Books)

In a small bank in western Massachusetts, Frances "Frankie" Fitzgibbons--forty-five, widowed, and a hitherto mild-mannered home loan officer--is transformed almost overnight into a hard-charging, fast-talking embodiment of greed, ambition, and sexual voracity. She turns a seventeen-year-old drum major into her boy toy, bullies her way into the chief executive officer position at her bank, initiates a reign of terror among the employees, establishes herself as the darling of the local media, and moves to take over a competing institution.

Originally published in the wake of the Savings & Loan scandals of the 1990s, Kennedy's scathing satire of the American way of business is no less relevant today.