Den of Thieves

Wow, this was a labyrinth of organizations, key figures, and general figures that help chronicle the tremendous heights the men (and their respective organizations) fell, chiefly due to their crossing of ethical and legal lines in their feverish pursuit of hostile corporate raids, mostly taking shape as Leveraged Buyouts (which is when an individual, group, or entity purchases a firm through a combination of cash, debt, and equity.)

The greatness of this double-edged book, which easily makes it one of the greatest pieces of history and cultural relic from the height of what many would call 'the age of greed and excess', is also what makes it painfully boring at times: it is such an effective retelling of exactly what happened from as many first-hand sources as possible (and rest assured, there are literally more than one can reasonably keep track of without diligent note-taking), that it tends to mix just as many dull thrusts as there are penetrating ones. For every funny moment or juicy piece of intrigue, there is the tedium and essential retelling of what really happened from a fairly even-handed and well researched author.

All this is to say that the book, while indisputably a masterpiece of the author and what he was obviously trying to do—tell EVERYTHING that he could involving this period the best he could—also likely makes it (especially based off reading the reviews on here), understandably, a miss with many casual readers who have no formal association or passionate interest within the business or financial world. That being said, it's a magnificent and quintessential relic of Financial History cannon, easily meeting "Liar's Poker" or "Barbarians at the Gate" as equals, though not nearly as sharp-witted by comparison.

To summarize, f you are in any way passionate or committed to understanding Wall Street specifically during the 1980's, LBOs, and high finance or business, then this is an absolute must-read. But if this is not you, and you just want a non-tome that cuts more straightforwardly, stick with Barbarians at the Gate, or a summary, or even some articles detailing everything. All this said, this is one of those books where you'll definitely be glad you read it once it's over, I know I am—the only question is how much that is worth to you.

Insider trading and other financial crimes are complex, hard to detect, very lucrative and, in absence of strong government regulation, it could also become rampant!
This is a crime thriller story featuring a ring of high profile Wall Street financiers who racked up billions in illegal profits at the expense of tax payers and small investors in the 1980's, before crashing and burning at the hands of dedicated, honest and lowly paid law enforcement officers.

The book has a satisfying level of technical details for finance gurus and a satisfying level of character development details for drama aficionados.

It is a great read.

Best financial history book I've read since Barbarians at the Gate, depicting the most despicable greed on Wall Street in the 1980s. Mike Milken is a truly abhorrent and loathsome man with a broken, or worse, non-existent moral compass - I could not fathom why young people to this day are still enamored with this so-called "junk bond king." Also unbelievable is the fact that Trump has just pardoned Milken in 2020, sending two horrible messages to the public, as James Stewart wrote in the NY Times: "When it comes to justice, money counts. And white-collar crime doesn’t really matter."

A veritable thriller, choke-full of details that really put you on the scene.

Super long but fascinating read. In all honesty, a lot of the financial and legal / regularly details went a bit over my head, but it’s still possible to understand enough about the basics of insider trading, arbitrage, and junk bonds in order to follow along. Stewart does a great job of putting the events of the 80s into sociopolitical context (e.g., the WASP culture of Wall Street).

Fascinating, detailed play-by-play of the Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky insider trading scandals from the 1980s. The author has accumulated a huge amount of detail and information, including dialogue from meetings and conversations that I assume is from the court evidence and interviews with participants. Most struck by the government's difficulty in proving and trying the case in spite of the cooperation of a number of corroborating witnesses and the fascinating character details of the participants themselves. Overall a surprisingly fun read that makes the case for regulation of financial activity and aggressive enforcement of securities fraud.

I don't think I understand everything, but I understand that there was (and probably still is) a lot of shenanigans going on on Wall Street that involved sharing information, sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely, parking stock, . It's essentially about the tangled web of relationships, and numerous secret accounts in America, Switzerland, and of insider trading which made a handful of people VERY VERY rich. And about how they were caught when someone noticed something that didn't add up (because of a lapse in rigorous security), and then during investigation discovered something funny in two employees at an investment house who had an incredible amount of success in the stock market. The funny thing is, these two guys were not part of any knowing insider-trading. They only saw that there was an account (or two) that kept making trades with remarkable success, so they just copied the trades. The thieves (as the author refers to the arbitrageurs) took many measures to hide their activity, most of it very effective, but they couldn't control someone they didn't know was following their trades.
Even though I couldn't understand all of the trades and payback machinations, I could follow the story well enough.
It's also a story about the SEC and AG and the prosecution of the case, the deals made, the problems with prosecution. During a couple of chapters, Rudy Guiliani, head of the AG office in charge of the prosecution, is prominent. It's interesting, given what we see of Guiliani today, to see what he did then.
After reading the book, I have no sense that the stock market is a fair place although the rest of my life suggests it's still better to have some savings in the stock market if you can. I also have no idea how many people who are in the stock market are honest and ethical. The book didn't address that. From that book (and the one I have just started about Bernie Madoff), I know that some people in Wall Street are ethical. I also know from the books that more than I would have thought are not honest, and that the SEC may not be up to the task of policing Wall Street (some for understandable reasons, some for political reasons). (some kinds of) Cheating is apparently easy, and hard to find and therefore very tempting.
One thing that came across to me was how tempting it was to cheat because how hard it would be to be discovered and how much money could be made. I'm not even sure if it was harder to reject insider information, or to accept it. One of the defendants in the case even participated, but refused to take any of the money earned because he knew it was illegal and didn't want to be tainted, and saying "no" was difficult given the milieu.
I thought I would be discouraged and afraid to read the book - wanting to hide my head in the sand. Despite the book painting a poor portrait of parts of Wall Street, I enjoyed the book. The writing was good and the story engaging.
P.S. Almost every defendant involved ended up very very rich. Some will have to wait until they get out of jail to enjoy their wealth, but they, too, will have plenty of time to enjoy it.
P.P.S. Many people castigate lawyers as sharks and unethica and I frequently hear the Shakespeare quote on lawyers. The heroes of this story are the lawyers who stuck with it, putting public service ahead of personal advancement. Just wanted to point that out.

The scariest part of this book is how well it humanizes the people involved. No one is portrayed as evilly cackling as they count all their hundred-dollar bills, but at the same time, no one is doing good just for the sake of doing good either. Everyone has their own motivations and are making the choices that make the most sense to them.