Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

It is somewhat difficult to review this book - the true story underlying it is a horrific example of corporate blindness in the textile industry in Bangladesh and therefore I almost feel obliged to praise the book. As a work of literature, though, it falls short for me. First of all, I think it needed a stronger editorial hand as at times it was really slow with unnecessary detail and side plots that distracted from the main story. Too often I found myself muttering 'get on with it!' through gritted teeth. Overall I found the book quite plodding.

The main theme is sin, in one form or another, and redemption: there are multiple threads/storylines in this vein. This is set against the background of the often dubious sourcing by large first world retailers in which we are all complicit when we want more for less. Parts of the novel read like a not very good thriller and at times I wasn't quite sure of the direction in which the author's interests lay - thriller or campaigning novel. I thought a number of the characters were unbelieveable cardboard cutouts, and the whole thing was a bit too 'pat' to be convincing. The end especially just didn't ring true - too neatly tied up (when the evidence shows that the sort of malfeasance outline in the book continues to occur in the developing world) and with the final scenes tending towards a saccharine happy ending. This bothered me the most - it almost seemed to me to be using the plight of third world labour to show that corporate America isn't so bad after all. Maybe I would have felt differently had I not already read around the subject of abuses in supply chains: the fictional treatment seemed rather lightweight and didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know so the shock value was lost on me.

Corban Addison is one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his books, so I was very excited to receive this book from Netgalley. Thank you to the Author, publisher, and netgalley.
I really like the basis for this story. I think that everyone is aware that the majority of clothing made in North America is made in other countries. I think that everyone knows that the people that are making our clothing are making extremely low wages. But the reality is that people in North America want good quality clothing for good prices. This book is a fictional story that looks deeper into the realities of the clothing industry. This book is very eye opening because, although it is fiction, I am sure that many of the things that happen in this book are based on reality.
I really enjoyed this book, but I found it a bit of a slow read. The book is very interesting, but it never really grabbed me and made me want to stay up all night to read it. Not as good as Corban Addison's other books, but definitely worth the read.

When a factory burns down in Bangladesh, killing over two hundred people and injuring many more, a young girl's broken body, with a label of a big American brand attached to the garment covering her face hits the international headlines.

The largest retail clothing company is under investor revolt, a citizen protest and media bloodletting. Sales on Black Friday is in danger and company shares drop with each minute the news is spread all over the world by the media who leech from the event as much as they can get. The three-trillion-dollar global apparel machine continue to hum, minting money for the brands, but it is soon to change if the Presto Corporation cannot stem the tsunami of bad news hitting their shores.

Cameron Alexander, senior vice president and general counsel for the Presto Corporation decide to secretly investigate the fire and find the girl who's photo threatens to destroy the company's image. He does not involve his best friend, Vance Lawson, the company's CEO, in his plans and leaves in the company's Gulfstream G550 on his undercover mission.

He soon discovers that for the entire Presto Corporation there was a world before Sonia Hassan, and the world after her, when his investigations leads to the factories in Bangladesh, Jordan, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and exposes the entire American retail economy in collusion with labor abusers, corrupt governments and human trafficking.

The NAFTA agreement enables American companies to make the calculated end run around all the labor protection that American workers gained a hundred years ago. They dropped their American workers, but not their American markets. And the American consumers are just too happy to buy bargain products, doesn't matter how, where, or by whom it was made.

A saga unfolds around the privileged families and lawyers getting involved.
Quote from the book:
"After Vance and Cameron departed, Josh took a moment to survey the chief executive’s office. The baronial décor, dominated by reds and browns and dark leather and Oriental rugs, triggered something in his memory – the Harvard Club in New York. He hadn’t been there in years, but he remembered it distinctly, all the lamps and sconces and portraits on the walls, the weight of privilege in every gilded frame. That was the world in which Vance had been reared, a world of mansions and servants and summer houses on Nantucket. He hadn’t climbed his way to this lofty perch overlooking the Washington skyline as much as he had been born to it, in the same way that Lewis and Madison had been born to a lineage of social reformers and Cameron to a pedigree of Boston lawyers. It was the way of the world. But the world wasn’t immutable. Things could change..." END OF QUOTE

Joshua Griswold - an award winning, disgraced journalist, meets up with a whistleblower from the company and is persuaded to file a lawsuit against the company. In his own research he finds the people behind the corporate wealth, the poor, abused people such as Sonia Hassan and her father Ashik; Jashel Sayed Parveen, and Alya Begum.

Josh is determined to introduce the real people behind the three-trillion dollar economy to the American citizens and create an awareness of the situation behind the cheap products.

COMMENTS

The book has a beautiful cover.
Although it is predictable, the story introduces complex characters populating a world of greed and power. A combination of documentary and novel, the tale centers around the morals and ethics behind the ruthless pursuit of profits and sales in the global village.

The story is drawn-out and could have ended sooner, with careful editing that could have made it stronger, more dramatic, more intriguing. The prose is excellent. The background is atmospheric and convincing. A difficult moral issue is addressed in a good way.

The story contains too many issues to fill up the background. However, it does provide a richness to the different characters. They all have a backstory to tell.

Although the book exposes the clothing industry for what it really is, it is still a relaxing read, devoid of excessive violence (for the sake of effect or for over dramatization purposes). A gentle compromise concludes the book. It was definitely an informative read.

3.5 settle for 4.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, Thomas Nelson, for the opportunity to review the book.