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Theft

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Abdulrazak Gurnah

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“When he was alone on the mat in the storeroom that night, closed in and in the dark, he felt a panic cutting through his misery. He sat up in alarm and heaved for air. He was too old for sobbing in the dark, but he could not stop. After what seemed a long time, the nausea eased, and he stretched out on the floor mat and tried to sleep. He remembered his father sitting silent and sullen on the bus, then striding in front of him past the blue mosque. He remembered his look of rage, his last words to him.”

TraumaBetrayalToxic Family
Book:Theft
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“Vetinari leaned back and placed his fingers together. ‘Let us consider a situation in which some keen and highly inventive men devise a remarkable system of communication,’ he said. ‘What they have is a kind of passionate ingenuity, in large amounts. What they don’t have is money. They are not used to money. So they meet some . . . people, who introduce them to other people, friendly people, who for, oh, a forty per cent stake in the enterprise give them the much-needed cash and, very important, much fatherly advice and an introduction to a really good firm of accountants. ‘And so they proceed, and soon money is coming in and money is going out but somehow, they learn, they’re not quite as financially stable as they think and really do need more money. Well, this is all fine because it’s clear to all that the basic enterprise is going to be a money tree one day, and does it matter if they sign over another fifteen per cent? It’s just money. It’s not important in the way that shutter mechanisms are, is it? ‘And then they find out that yes, it is. It is everything. Suddenly the world’s turned upside down, suddenly those nice people aren’t so friendly any more, suddenly it turns out that those bits of paper they signed in a hurry, were advised to sign by people who smiled all the time, mean that they don’t actually own anything at all, not patents, not property, nothing. Not even the contents of their own heads, indeed. Even any ideas they have now don’t belong to them, apparently. And somehow they’re still in trouble about money. ‘Well, some run and some hide and some try to fight, which is foolish in the extreme, because it turns out that everything is legal, it really is. Some accept low-level jobs in the enterprise, because one has to live and in any case the enterprise even owns their dreams at night. And yet actual illegality, it would appear, has not taken place. Business is business.’ Lord Vetinari opened his eyes. The men around the table were staring at him.”

BusinessCapitalismGreedCorruptionBetrayalFinanceFraudExploitationTheftCorporatism
Book:Going Postal: A Novel of Discworld – An Ingenious Satire of Government, Technology, and Human Nature
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“But before I could pull back onto the highway, the blue and red flashing lights of a police cruiser lit up behind me. I watched as the officer, wearing a mask, approached. He motioned for me to put on a mask and open my window. How could I put on a mask? I didn’t have one. I mouthed, no mask. He pulled one out of his uniform jacket pocket. One of those despicable thin blue paper masks. Now what the hell good was that going to do either of us?”

FictionBetrayalThrillerSuspenseInvestigationIntrigueFiction NovelNoir Mystery
Book:Deception: A Jack Ludefance Novel
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