"So Sam Israel was a con artist, one of the best and most accomplished on Wall Street. But as the reality of his crime weighed on him, and he fell into a deep, drug-fueled funk, Israel began to become delusional. And eventually, he himself was conned by a series of Sting-like grifters who convinced him that a secret network of Trilateral Commission/CIA/Bildeburg-style elite insiders were trading in a secret bond market that generated huge guaranteed profits for the small club of financial titans allowed entry into the group." - Andrew C (✓) from Bookmarklet

"But this is also an important book because the reason Israel fell for this extraordinary con was based entirely upon his real experiences on Wall Street. Israel had grown up among some of the biggest movers and shakers on the street, including his first hedge fund boss in the early eighties, Fred Graber. Israel started essentially as a gopher for Graber, who had built a very successful hedge fund that was based, it turns out, almost entirely on front-running, insider trading, and other easy money schemes." - Andrew C (✓)

"Hilariously, the Graber model for making money - sitting back and collecting relatively small (read: insufficiently gigantic) sums on a risk-free basis by trading on little bits of inside info here and there - eventually comes to represent, in Israel's mind, the simple, honest path of a gray-flannel-suit-wearing Wall Street trader with humble ambitions. Israel could have followed the Graber model and lived like an ordinary rich person (by the early nineties, he was mostly there), but he wanted to be a Huge Otherworldly Success, so he abandoned the "honest" grifting of his old boss's generation to go for something bigger. But it's the description of this "honest" period of Israel's life I find fascinating. Nobody who reads this book will fail to realize how it is that the current lineup of Wall Street nobility, the Goldmans and Chases et al, make money." - Andrew C (✓)