A Corkscrew Life

Richard Coulson's memoir of his peripatetic life vividly describes his unique travels and the exceptional people he met along the way. His adventures began at birth and continued into his childhood with his glamorous mother in Nassau, Bahamas. Following an Ivy League education and army service in Korea, he became a New Yorker practicing law with a major Wall Street firm. His move into investment banking led to eight years in London, and his eventual return to Nassau, an offshore financial centre.

His professional career has involved projects with locations ranging from Latin America to Europe to the Far East, with particular emphasis on Mexico, where he advised on many ventures and made life-long friends. He enjoyed gaining intriguing insights with contacts in Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, and Switzerland, as well as a notorious American inside-trader, and a charming fugitive scoundrel known as ?The Pirate of Prague.?

The range of his personal interests were reflected in his friendships with conservative pundit William F. Buckley; Russian aristocrat Prince Nikita Lobanov, who rose from penniless exile to sell his art collection to Putin's Russian government; and Norbert Schlei, a star attorney whose success was shattered by a misguided Federal prosecution.

Interwoven into "A Corkscrew Life" are passages revealing both the joys and disappointments of Mr. Coulson's own life It describes his obsession with sailing; the strains on his family from changing homes; love, illness and death; questionable career moves; and an unexpected epiphany.