A character-driven narrative of oddball investors who foresaw the subprime housing collapse and devastating consequences for investment banks. To benefit from the seizure, one had to divine how mortgage-backed credit default swaps and collateralized default obligations generated revenue, able to access the rarefied market, and be willing to wait out the gravity-defying origination of new home loans. The book is intended to (again) portray the ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ ethos of Wall Street, and generally succeeds too in favorably depicting the protagonists. But the coda, where Lewis looks to tie investment banking’s demise to the flotation of Salomon Brothers, seems the greatest overreach. Conflict preceded public listing, however questionable that mechanism. Ironically enough, the contemporary response to the crisis – more regulation – may get at the problem suggested by Lewis, which is that people are at the heart of the problem and rules can always be surmounted.