|
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By
Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street (Kindle Edition)
This is a gripping account of a colossal insider trading scandal. It reads well and provides a great deal of insight into the processes both of gaining inside information and of prosecuting those alleged to have benefited from this. It comes across as a sort of drama - perhaps with movie rights in mind - and the author spends no time on the many ramifications from the drama, and that is her prerogative. My principal criticism is that the book is clearly written from the perspective of the prosecutors and seems to be something of a spin for them. (PLOT SPOILER!) Their major target escaped completely and remains at liberty as one of the world's wealthiest individuals. continuing to trade with impunity. The book does rather come across as an excuse for the failure to prosecute such a high profile suspect and is very light on criticism of the prosecutors for allowing him to get away. My subordinate criticism is that Cohen is painted as a sort of pantomime villain, who gets booed every time he steps on stage. I have no doubt that all the ugly facts presented about him are true, simply because no publisher would risk libelling someone as wealthy as this. However, one suspects that the author has chosen to omit favourable aspects of his character and so he comes across as two- rather than three-dimensional. For example, the author has a great dramatic subplot in that his first wife, in a sort of "nor hell a fury like a woman scorned" moment, fed damning evidence to the prosecutors and filed a lawsuit alleging that she had been defrauded in the divorce settlement. The ex-wife's side is given much coverage, but the fact that her lawsuit was dismissed gets just a short sentence. These, however, are minor points: this is one of the most gripping books I have read this year and I am happy to recommend it.
Sort: Oldest first | Newest first
Showing 1-1 of 1 posts in this discussion
Initial post:
Mar 4, 2017, 3:14:00 AM PST
Donald P. Reed says:
Considering how gawd-awful these business/crime (or business-crime) books can be, it sounds as if the readability of the book is more than acceptable.
‹ Previous 1 Next ›
|
Review DetailsItem
Reviewer
![]() |