Spinners

Bill Gates, billionaire founder of Microsoft, once reportedly said that he would spend his last dollar on strategic communications. Some cynics regard PR as a puffed-up world of spin, performed by ego-loaded practitioners, none worth a dollar of anybody's money. The reality is that PR communicators have never had to grasp more complex, fast-evolving issues than they do today. The top PR men and women are power brokers in a global multibillion-dollar business. Spinners is a work of fiction. Set in an international communications consulting firm, high-stakes challenges are tackled around the globe by an eclectic group of intelligent, creative people, led by their dashing leader, Robert Silke, and his mentor and partner, Oscar Keats. The team fights for their clients with advocacy, imagination, and tradecraft. Drama and intrigue unveil as they struggle with an industry crisis, an extortion trap, a kidnapping, a corporate sting, a bitter boardroom battle, an attack on a dam in Africa, the downfall of an over-powerful investor and how Chinese mind games influenced the 2020 US presidential election. How does Silke cope when he faces his own personal crises? First, his marriage comes under pressure. COVID-19 hits his firm's revenues, threatening its survival. A trusted colleague betrays him. Will he lose the firm? There may be some in high places who, after reading this book, might imagine this is about them. Some might wonder if there will be a sequel. Spinners was inspired by events in the mostly unregulated no man's land of modern-day business communications, where fierce battles are won and lost by experts whose skill involves going to the edge and beyond. The authors wish to celebrate the many business leaders, financiers, PR practitioners, and journalists whose talents motivated this tale to be written.