(Wiley, $27.95
)
Vicky Ward’s The Devil’s Casino isn’t just another book about the financial crisis, said Liz Raftery in The Boston Globe. Ward, a writer for Vanity Fair, dishes up a behind-the-scenes look at the top brass of doomed investment bank Lehman Brothers, including CEO Richard Fuld. This book humanizes these “titans of finance,” but The Devil’s Casino is “by no means an absolution.” To hear Ward tell it, “duplicity and betrayal” among the bankers during the 1990s set the scene for Lehman’s 2008 failure, said James Pressley in Bloomberg.com. “She presents a history spiced with shouting bankers, desperate wives, and one hurled
 adding machine.” As in any page-turner, there’s a villain—President and Chief Operating Officer Joseph M. Gregory. Ward seems to “cast in the best light those who gave her the most access,” and apparently Gregory wasn’t one of them. This may not be 
the most analytical book about the financial crisis, but it’s easily the juiciest.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
US foodies brace for tariff warUnder The Radar Shoppers stocking up on imported olive oil, maple syrup and European wine as price hikes loom
-
How Canadian tariffs could impact tourism to the USIn the Spotlight Canadians represent the largest group of foreign visitors to the United States. But they may soon stop visiting.
-
Entitlements: DOGE goes after Social SecurityFeature Elon Musk is pushing false claims about Social Security fraud
