Books: The Organization Mandible

THE LINCOLN LORDS (556 pp.)—Cameron Hawley—Little, Brown ($5).

There is a feudal clank to the title of Cameron Hawley's latest novel, and for a moment the startled bookshop browser may wonder whether this chronicler of corporate Lancelots has abandoned the executive suite for the ducal fortress. He has done no such thing, of course. The Lords are not border chiefs but a matrimonial amalgam—Lincoln and Maggie Lord, that is. Lincoln is an organization mandible—a tanned, nobly hewn jaw suspended six feet from the floor and usually worth $50,000 a year because it inspires respect...