Thanks to the publisher for access to this book. I found that it dragged on and, as some others said, didn't give much new information about Bernie Madoff. Clearly well researched but I wasn't a fan.

The book is good. It could be better. I felt like I was sitting at the bar with the guy listening to the story over beers, definitely a good yarn here. It needs editing. Stop reminding me what 703 is. I'm three quarters of the way through the book and you're exhausting me with the reminders. Give me the reminder something like three times, maximum. First third of the book too, by the 75% mark I know damn well that JPMC has an account ending in the numbers 703 that is capable of making some ghoul named alan greenberg nearly have a stroke when asked about it. Let's see what else. Just after the bit about Doctoroff taking over for Cassa there's a mistake. You describe transactions between Levy and Madoff from Manufacturers Hanover and Chemical/JPMC "Bernie would transfer money from to Levy". Is it money from or is it money to? Context saves you if it doesn't get changed but still, you owe me a beer for that one. Don't use the unword "amirite", it's below the rest of the work. It's dumber than Bernie Madoff. Dumber that the SEC. Why did you spend any words defending them? On the subject of the SEC and the characters contained in here, I refuse to believe that you've used real names. Andrew Calamari? Was his partner Bobby Salami? Tommy Tuna was probably on the case as well. Wait there's an Annette Bongiorno? A european guy last name Schon (with the umlaut!). SEC goon named Badway? Alright alright it's too much you got me. I really liked "cell phones were smoking across the city" or whatever that phrase was, that's pretty good. I hope you didn't steal it.
Felt like I learned a ton, which is always good. Things like: the SEC badly needs to get their eyeballs checked. These guys keep reading billions as millions, among other things; Basically blow Madoffs crime off until they start getting frantic phone calls. At this point the wife is just pulling ten cool million out of accounts while the SEC wildly proclaims "it can wait until the morning". So much of Madoff's fraud ishilarious, just total farce. First off, he's just forging documents. That's all. But the mendacity is just preposterous. Making more fake trades than the total volume of all trades on the entire market in some given period. Claiming to an investigator that he has less than 20 clients when he has more than 20 family members in on the scheme with accounts. Just stuff that only the blind would miss. SEC allow me to give you a hot tip, if someone is doing impossible things with money to the point that everyone on wallstreet is saying THIS GUY IS DEFINITELY DOING CRIME you should just put on a pair of fucking glasses and dig through the trash at one of their many mansions where you will likely find a piece of paper that says something like FAKE TRADES at the top, followed by a list of fake trades they are making.
I clearly had a good time reading this, despite every effort you made to bore me to death in the beginning when you're connecting photos on the wall with red yarn. It's sort of all over the place but if you cut some of the crap I'd say this thing should be in a library someplace. Would benefit from footnotes telling the reader where they all are now. Don't forget that beer you owe me. 4th star when I get it.

I had only heard of stories about Madoff in isolation and ethics classes before. Richard Behar did a fabulous job putting together a story that’s super newsworthy over 200+ pages without boring the reader. But for an ARC, I wouldn’t have picked this up. However, it was a great read and I imagine would have been a great audiobook.

My appreciation to Avid Reader Press and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book.

I approached this book avidly as it has been in production for many years and I had high hopes. I read the first big book to come out about it, Diana Henriques' "Wizard of Lies" which was very good but left unanswered questions. I also felt that. Henriques was unduly kind to Ruth, the wife..

Behar to his credit does not believe that Ruth was as innocent as has been depicted. However, the book on the whole is disappointing, with little new material. It is rambling and poorly written. It is basically a memoir of his what Behar did to research this book. Behar continually inserts himself into the story in an annoying fashion.

The result is that the book lacks narrative power and is terribly self-indulgent. Frankly it reads like a very long magazine piece and not like a book that has been so long in the making.. It is as if he emptied his notebook, and what we have is less than the sum of his parts. The small amount of new material would have been better for a magazine article, and there is much padding. and much attention to minutiae.

He is excessively nasty to Sheryl Weinstein, Madoff's alleged mistress, who wrote a book on their affair.. He quotes Madoff rejecting her account in a harsh manner, But he does not point out that Ruth Madoff believed Weinstein, and that that was the reason she cut the cord with Madoff. It also struck me as strange that he would quote Madoff attacking Weinstein, given that Behar says repeatedly that Madoff lied to him. It is wrong that he would quote a liar like Madoff attacking his ex-mistress in such a brutal way.

Another author of a competing book he smears is Harry Markopolos. He paints Markopolos in extremely negative terms and says that Markopolos did not provide sufficient information to the SEC to warrant an investigation. That is debatable, and Behar is far too nice to the SEC, which he totally exonerates. What about the two media articles Behar mentions in 2001 that questioned Madoff's returns? Didn't they raise questions at the SEC?

While exonerating the SEC and attacking its critics, he questions whether investors in Madoff's funds were truly victims, which struck me as harsh and unfair.. Yet he confesses he himself didn't even run a check of his own broker for many years, and when he did he found out he was a convicted felon. He is right to slam Wall Street firms but how are they and Madoff's investors less culpable than the SEC? The SEC disciplined people for negligence in dealing with Madoff but Behar lets the SEC off the hook completely.

He ends by discussing Madoff's psyche and mental motivations but sheds little light on this very important aspect.

There is some clear, crisp, engaging writing here, but the substance of the narrative is so riddled with unsupported, sometimes inexplicable personal conclusions that even those parts of the narrative that seem objective and well-reported are called into question.

The real topper comes right at the end when the author plunges into an unhinged, multi-page, anti-Trump tirade ("Trump and his followers are a national mental health crisis; Trump is the biggest liar ever to occupy the White House"). What does the writer's hatred of Trump and his supporters have to do with Bernie Madoff, you may well ask? Well... nothing at all. The writer doesn't even make an attempt to connect Trump to the narrative of Madoff's crimes. He just flails away at him pointlessly for half a dozen pages. Talk about a mental health crisis.

All that nonsense really contributes is to remind us that this book isn't real reporting. It's a deeply personal view in which the writer protects people he likes and smears those he doesn't like. If you haven't already realized that before you get to the end, you will certainly realize it then. Hauling in Donald Trump to attack when he has nothing at all to do with the narrative is the perfect way to highlight the vacuousness of this entire book. Very disappointing.

I have read several books about Bernie Madoff, and this one is, without a doubt, the best of them all.