Shattered Covenants: Book One
Present and Past Imperfect
by
Book Details
About the Book
Present & Past Imperfect is the first book in a series of seven novels entitled
Shattered Covenants which
narrates the formation,
rise, decline and fall of McKenzie Barber, a global management consulting firm.
Present & Past Imperfect takes place during a single week in November 1987 with
flashbacks to the founding and organizational evolution of McKenzie Barber. The
reader meets John McKenzie, the founding father of the discipline of management
consulting
and
tracks the ascendancy of Ernie Grey as John McKenzie’s successor to the
November 1987 reality of a faltering
enterprise under the leadership in the post-Ernie Grey era.
The
central character of Present & Past Imperfect is Joe Baxter, an executive
compensation consulting partner, who is trying to hold his place in the
structure of a
firm with shifting leadership and political tides.
The
reader is introduced to a number of memorable characters which include
Hamilton Burke III, a swashbuckling former Green Beret , who competes for
Chairman succession
at
McKenzie Barber only to fall short;
Clyde Nickerson, the ultimate bureaucratic villain; Bridgette, Baxter’s high powered retailing
executive wife; Leon Harwell , a
legendary investor; Hakim Selim, Harwell’s wily
investment manager; Dominique de Hartog, once a
McKenzie Barber consultant, now a corporate predator; Stephany Hart, an
arrogant Wall Street industry
Analyst; Bonnie Grow, an ambitious young
consultant; Frank Alvardi, Baxter’s mentor and Joe
DiMaggio look-alike; Jon Grunwaldyt, the ultimate
organization politician; and Lon MacMasters, who
has been parachuted in to bring
financial discipline to the sliding performance of McKenzie Barber’s New York office.
The
remaining books in the Shattered Covenants series include:
Ø The Road to
McKenzie Barber
Ø The
Consultant
Ø The Chairman
Ø The Partner
Ø The House of
Harwell
Ø Twilight
& Endgame
Shattered
Covenants offers a sweeping look at men and women’s careers in business
organizations, the quest for power, recognition, and career survival, and may
represent the ultimate business fiction of
the Twenty-first Century.
About the Author
Dwight
Foster, the author of Shattered Covenants, is a native of
Shattered
Covenants is a first novel, which represents an eight year writing project
dealing with the passing of leadership in a professional services firm. Present
& Past Imperfect is the initial book in a series of free standing
novels narrating the formation, rise, decline, and fall of McKenzie Barber, a fictional global
management consulting firm.
Later books in the series include:
Ø The Road to
McKenzie Barber
Ø The
Consultant
Ø The Chairman
Ø The Partner
Ø The House of
Harwell
Ø Twilight
& Endgame
Shattered
Covenants deals with the
passing of CEOs (i.e. kings) and their ultimate effect on the
careers and lives of the courtiers, and rank and file professionals who follow
the leadership of the CEO.
The
author has spent his business career in the consulting industry, and for the
past twelve years, has headed up a well-recognized executive search firm.
Dwight Foster has published previously in management studies and magazine
articles and is quoted from time to time in the national press. His experience
in the practice of executive search and familiarity with organization and business models over
the past thirty years provided the motivation to write a sweeping novel. The
primary narrator of Shattered Covenants, Joseph Baxter, Jr., is the son of a
labor martyr from
Dwight
Foster is a