The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns by Alan Greenberg

last updated 8 January 2015

(Simon & Schuster, $26)

Alan “Ace” Greenberg was not only one of the “smartest arbitrageurs” on Wall Street, he stood at the helm of Bear Stearns when it was a “highly profitable machine,” said Henny Sender in the Financial Times. So readers may be disappointed to realize that the purpose of this “curious work” seems to be simply to blame Greenberg’s successor, former chief executive Jimmy Cayne, for all the problems that caused Bear Stearns’ sudden and infamous collapse in March 2008. “This is memoir as revenge.”

The book is short on analysis and “long on diatribe and gossip,” said Norman Pearlstine in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It’s also intended as a rebuttal to William D. Cohan’s House of Cards, which “portrays Ace as sometimes ruthless and small-minded.” But if you can overlook that grudge match, this insider look is “essential reading for those interested in both Wall Street’s ascendance and its recent demise.”