Book of the week: No One Would Listen by Harry Markopolos

(Wiley, $27.95)

In 2000, Harry Markopolos’ boss asked him to design an investment product similar to that offered by Bernard Madoff, said Kris Frieswick in The Boston Globe. Markopolos, then a money manager, needed “only a few minutes studying Madoff’s supernaturally consistent rate of return” to see that he was a fraud. So why did it take eight years before anyone—including the Securities and Exchange Commission—took Markopolos’ charge seriously? In No One Would Listen, Markopolos “sheds more light than he intends” on the answer to that question, said Richard Tofel in The Wall Street Journal. While the SEC’s lackadaisical response to his submissions was “nothing less than appalling,” Markopolos wasn’t exactly a disinterested source. Not only was he working for a Madoff competitor when he initially approached the SEC, he also wanted a bounty for his findings. “He was clearly not trying to be selfless”—a point apparent even in his own juicy, well-informed account.

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