About the best things I can say for this book is that its a light read and the topic is interesting.

Note I said the topic and not the book.

The book revolves around Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme and why the SEC wouldn't follow-up on Markopolis' direct warnings. The answer, which he admits was mentioned, seems quite clear to me; this is a tough guy to like. All I've read is his book and I already don't like the man and would be somewhat dismissive of whatever his claims were. That in no way excuses the SEC, but it is the reason.

First, I admit to working in the industry and know too many people exactly like Mr. Markopolis; his claims that 'only a handful of people in the world understand this math', instead of the truth that thousands do is only 1 sign of the man's inferiority complex and his pathological need to convince himself of his own intelligence. Good lord, the man opens the book by breaking the cardinal rule of using the CFA designation...you are a CFA charterholder, you are not a Chartered Financial Analyst....I wonder if the CFA Institute sanctioned him for this very public breach.

In the end the book fails as the subject matter should have been covered in a quarter the space; the book is so full of repitition its unbelievable it made it passed an editor.

Don't waste your time or money; Wikipedia does a better, more succinct, job of telling this tale.

First, most white collar crime investigators would benefit from reading this book. They should look at Mr. Markopolos's demeanor and think about how they would treat such a complainant. In the end Mr. Markopolos was mostly correct about Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. But there may be several reasons why he could not get his story accepted in a credible manner early enough in the affair. And it is hard to believe that it was all just incompetence on the part of the SEC and other enforcement officials

Second, there is a Canadian angle in his story beyond his personal lawyer having emigrated to and been educated in Canada. There is a comment about Royal Bank of Canada not allowing clients in 2005 to borrow funds to invest in Madoff funds. Finally there is a chart on countries that were sources of funds and admittedly only a few Madoff funds and funds of funds in Canada were contributors to Madoff's Ponzi scheme. No data is provided on the actual amounts.

Third, as a former investigator in a federal agency, it was with interest that I read this book by someone who admittedly has never been on the government investigatory side of the fence. But he has all sorts of opinions on how useful and effective the government officials were and how they could be "improved". The Inspector General of the SEC investigation into the agency's treatment of Markopolos complaints not surprisingly finds there was some incompetence on the part of the SEC enforcement division. But not all investigators are cut from the same cloth just as financial analysts are not all stars...there are a few really good ones, a good number of ho-hum ones and some that in retrospect were bad hiring decisions. But investigators initially should always be as interested in the complainants as the entity being complained about. That is only good practice. Most investigators will tell you that not every complainant is exactly transparent or altruistic in their motives in bringing a complaint forward. Indeed Markopolos is a self admitted bounty hunter. Not surprisingly there are "eccentric" complainants where their eccentricity obscures the merits of their complaint. Good investigators have to be aware of this and focus on the facts at hand as well as the true motives of the complainant. No sense embarrassing their political masters in spending public resources chasing after a complainants attempt to draft government officials into a private battle. Several times in reading the book I thought that Markopolos's statements were pushing the edges (e.g. thinking that the WSJ editors had shut down the WSJ reporter's interest in the Madoff story or that all senior people in the SEC were just too chummy with Wall Street types and that is why there were not pursuing allegations against Madoff). There seems to have been more to it than that and the SEC Inspector General's report into lack of SEC action on Markopolos complaints lays out a sensible set of facts.

This book has been reviewed in many places and a collection of these reviews are available on the web site for the book by the same title.