Den of Thieves

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Milken, the Midas of Drexel Burnham Lambert, who turned high-yield bonds into a new form of money and then set about to gobble all of it up. Applicable – You’ll get advice that can be directly applied in the workplace or in everyday situations. But when the line between on-screen and off begins to blur, Julien and Eli don’t have the luxury of dancing around each other anymore. All this seems to pale in comparison to the sub-prime fiasco in the 90's and 2000's, but is certainly a precursor to that greater scandal. Parts of it grab your attention so that you can't put it down, but for a layperson like me, there were more details than I cared to read.

Stewart is the author of Heart of a Soldier, the bestselling Blind Eye and Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. A helpful and/or enlightening book that, in addition to meeting the highest standards in all pertinent aspects, stands out even among the best.

James Stewart, a former front-page editor for the Wall Street Journal, does a masterful job explaining to the lay person the convoluted dealings of Wall Street after the Reagan-backed deregulation of the banking industry.

This book is long, and full of details about who put how much money into which security, who leaked inside information to who, and who is covering whose back, etc. This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. Stewart achieves this dramatic clarity by neatly dividing his book into two sections: one on the crime of insider trading and the other on the punishment.

The only challenge was the multitude of characters and corporations and at times the author’s efforts to provide the necessary detail made the narrative rather slow. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the eighties’ biggest names on Wall Street—Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine—created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions, until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America’s most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice. You come to realize that regulators and public prosecutors are imperfect people in imperfect situations, subject to their own set of desires, temptations and problems.

Stewart’s richly detailed book is must reading for those who trust their careers or their savings to the markets. I did not get that opportunity while listening (usually while commuting to work), so the book merely continued without explanation. A common refrain among nearly every defendant charged in the scandal was that it was unfair to single out one individual for prosecution when so many others were guilty of the same offenses, yet weren't charged. The code of silence that allowed crime to take root and flourish on Wall Street, even within some of the richest and most respected institutions, continues to protect many of the guilty. It's new to you, to a degree, and you feel social pressure to remain upbeat and engaged even as you hit snags of disappointment.Intertwining the stories of financiers, bankers, lawyers, and the law enforcement officials who pursued them, Den of Thieves tells a true tale of arrogance and complacency amongst the Wall Street elite. The taut narrative never slackens, providing thrilling entertainment for readers who like their horror raw and bloody. One of the main characters has a resume created for himself with a hilariously straightforward summary: "Dennis describes himself as a person who truly loves to do two things: do deals and make money". This book lays out all of the insider trading securities laws violations that were so prevalent in the 1980's.

This book is about the loss of household names such as Carnation, Beatrice, General foods, and Diamond Shamrock that vanished in takeovers that spawned criminal activity and violations of the securities laws. Milken unsurprisingly comes off as a grandiose, power and wealth-hungry egomaniac but still the extent of his achievement is pretty impressive. A helpful and/or enlightening book that is extremely well rounded, has many strengths and no shortcomings worth mentioning.

What I found most striking was the arrogance of the principals, the steadfast self justification - not only would they refute any wrongdoing in their minds they were heroes, and finally how the criminal behaviour was so richly rewarded even post persecution.