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.