Venetia Thompson takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride inside the final year of excess in the City. Working as one of only a few female inter-dealer bond brokers, the blonde ex-public school girl (nicknamed 'posh bird' and 'airbags' ) threw herself headlong into a 'work hard, play hard' culture of extravagance. Determined not to be bullied by the brash Essex wide boys and Alpha males around her, she partied with as much gusto as her colleagues, taking all the life offered: the GBP900 bottles of wine, the six-hour lunches, the days out at Cartier Polo, the Champagne-fuelled nights at lap-dancing clubs, the Chanel handbags and the meaningless sex.

Then, as easily as she'd slipped into the life, she was catapulted back out, when a satirical article she penned for The Spectator, spilled the beans on how her co-workers and bosses really behaved. Now, in Gross Misconduct, Thompson tells the full, unexpurgated story of what really went on in the mad, macho world of London's City traders during the boom years.