What's the connection between a long-forgotten patent held by Alfred and the schemes of a gurulike neurobiologist?
By trying to impose the abstract schemes of a remote elite, it is suggested, the EU has alienated ordinary Europeans.
It pits the designs of common girl against the schemes of a murderous king, and the bond between two sisters against the dark temptation of power beyond measure.
But their shy, slight, and plainspoken co-worker (Mickey Rooney), who shuns such displays, is the one who gets snared in the criminal schemes of a seductress (Dianne Foster).
Calling Pete Hautman's RAG MAN (Simon & Schuster, $23) a comic mystery doesn't feel right -- although the characters who get swept up in the crooked schemes of a charismatic garment trade manufacturer are funny to the bone.
They wonder how assets can so quickly become liabilities, and why the high-risk schemes of a few were permitted to inflict such grievous harm on our entire financial system.
Introducing legislation to close the scheme down, the Labour Treasury secretary, Stephen Timms, explained: "We are preventing exploitation of the tax system by the schemes of a small number of wealthy people.
Seymour, a sorry prospect at a second-tier Manhattan prep school and the narrator of Rich's caustic first novel, becomes a pawn in the schemes of a wily and wealthy classmate who is determined to make him a popular student.
