A revolution is underway at the once sleepy New England<br> bank where forty-five-year-old Frances Fitzgibbons, newly<br> endowed with a gift for persuasive speech and a dramatically<br> quickened libido, has gone from sweet-tempered loan officer<br> to insatiable force of nature almost overnight. Suddenly she's<br> brazenly seducing the high school drum major, taking over her<br> boss's office, firing anyone who crosses her, inspiring populist<br> fervor, and publicly announcing plans to crush her local rivals<br> en route to dominating the entire Northeast banking industry.<br> The explosive reign of terror instituted by Frances and her<br> offbeat goon squad (led by her devoted hairdresser and including<br> her own son-in-law), diabolically comic and frighteningly<br> plausible, brimming with snappy dialogue and gleeful obscenity,<br> is an awesome spectacle to behold.<br><br> A master stylist, Raymond Kennedy has created in <i>Ride a</i><br> <i>Cockhorse </i>a rollicking cautionary tale of small-town demagoguery<br> that might be seen to prefigure both America's current<br> financial woes and the rise of the likes of Sarah Palin. Frances<br> is in any case a beautiful monster of an antihero—resist her at<br> your peril!