Synopses & Reviews
An in-depth look at the ambitious career and sudden disgrace of the former New York governor With a combination of talent, hard work, connections, and family wealth, Eliot Spitzer built an amazing career. By his late forties, he'd gone from Princeton to Harvard Law to dramatic success as a prosecutor and attorney general to the governorship of New York. Many thought he would become the first Jewish president of the United States. Then came the prostitution scandal that shocked and mystified the nation.
Peter Elkind's definitive account gets at all sides of this complex man: the well-intentioned do-gooder, the aggressive lawyer, the hardball politician, the dutiful son, the loving husband and father, and the secretive "Client 9" of the Emperor's Club escort service.
Elkind interviewed dozens of key sources ranging from Spitzer's family, friends, and closest aides, to targets of his high-profile investigations, to central players in the prostitution ring. He reveals many groundbreaking new details about Spitzer's rise, his short time as governor, and the way his enemies plotted against him.
The result is a gripping, almost Shakespearean narrative-a tragedy of one man's noble intentions and fatal flaws and the powerful forces (both internal and external) that destroyed him.
Review
"Even if there weren't a prostitution thread, this would be a page-turner. Elkind's style is journalism at its best: well-reported but pared down, and full of colorful scenes."
-Samantha Henig, Newsweek.com
"The Eliot Spitzer story plays like a novel that might have been plotted by Theodore Dreiser and peopled with characters by Tom Wolfe. The governor of New York, aka "Mr. Clean", aka "the Sheriff of Wall Street", is transformed by a prostitution scandal into "the Luv Gov" and "Client 9." The tireless reformer compared to Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne; the moralistic square, who carried a briefcase in junior high, finds his much ballyhooed future as a possible presidential contender smashed to pieces, and the word "disgraced" seemingly permanently stapled to his name like a Homeric epithet."
-The New York Times
"Peter Elkind's Rough Justice, [is] an absorbing account of Spitzer's improbable journey from New York rich kid to celebrated Wall Street scourge - to infamous Client No. 9 of the Emperor's Club.
An editor at large at Fortune magazine and co-author of a book about the downfall of Enron Corp., Elkind captures the conflicting sides of Spitzer. He was an idealist who was genuinely outraged by the Wall Street pandemic. Yet Spitzer was also plagued by a volcanic temper and an over-caffeinated ego that was unable to keep his worst impulses in check."
-Los Angeles Times
"[Elkind] is a fantastic researcher who has used both his powers of persuasion and the freedom of information laws to full advantage. Readers are treated to the frantic e-mails of aides as they coped with Spitzer's foul-mouthed tirades and wild mood swings. The book also has the first interviews with the governor's favorite date from the Emperors Club prostitution ring."
-Washington Post
Review
and#8220;The best book about the Enron debacle to date.and#8221;
and#8212;BusinessWeek
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and#8220;The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track.and#8221;
and#8212;USA Today
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and#8220;Well-reported and well-written.and#8221;
and#8212;Warren Buffett
Synopsis
Peter Elkind presents an in-depth look at the ambitious career and sudden disgrace of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. The result is a gripping narrative of one man's noble intentions and fatal flaws and the powerful forces that destroyed him.
Synopsis
The tenth-anniversary edition of the definitive account of the Enron scandal, updated with a new chapter and#160;
The Enron scandal brought down one of the most admired companies of the 1990s. Countless books and articles were written about it, but only The Smartest Guys in the Room holds up a decade later as the definitive narrative. For this tenth anniversary edition, McLean and Elkind have revisited the fall of Enron and its aftermath, in a new chapter that asks why Enron still matters. They also reveal the fates of the key players in the scandal.
Synopsis
The tenth-anniversary edition of the definitive account of the Enron scandal, updated with a new chapter and#160;
The Enron scandal brought down one of the most admired companies of the 1990s. Countless books and articles were written about it, but only The Smartest Guys in the Room holds up a decade later as the definitive narrative. For this tenth anniversary edition, McLean and Elkind have revisited the fall of Enron and its aftermath, in a new chapter that asks why Enron still matters. They also reveal the fates of the key players in the scandal.
About the Author
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind collaborated on this book when they both were Fortune senior writers. McLean, a former investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs, is now a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and lives in Chicago. Elkind, an award-winning investigative reporter, is now an editor-at-large for Fortune and lives in Fort Worth, Texas.