Rating: 
Summary: Not much in common with Wall Street today, I Hope!
Review: Criticisms of this book center around the details of bond trading, specifically the authors miscalculation of commissions. Also, perhaps, some hearsay is included as facts. The author states that no anonymous sources are quoted, but there were un-named and 'not-for quote' sources used.You either believe that the main characters (Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, Dennis Levine)said what they said in the book or not. It's relevant because if true,Levine was a bigoted racist as well as a common thief. Not only did he rummage in associates desk drawers and files looking for inside information but he is quoted as saying that he could not understand a banker friend (who was interested in international lending to Third World countries)because all he wanted to do was "help the niggers and the spics." How's that for your respectable Investment Banker?! The point of the quote is this - Levine was not representative or typical of the 'new' banker but his comment shows that motives such as self interest and personal greed would certainly have found fertile ground to flourish in. The book accurately portrays the characters (including the seedy ones),their backgrounds and the environment they found themselves in. Wall Street of the late 1970's and early 80's was changing.The Wall Street establishment of old money investment houses (Goldman-Sachs,Morgan Stanley,Kidder Peabody, Merrill Lynch, etc)and stately (maybe even stale)banks such as Citibank and First Boston were being forced to make room for investment brokers and arbitrageurs (Drexel, Burnham & Boesky & Co. etc). New products, new people, new methods were being introduced. The new bankers were not your starched white shirt, conservative, Ivy League trained, WASP corporate types. They were first of all, younger and from different class, educational and ethnic backgrounds. Many of them were from immigrant or Jewish working or middle class families and felt themselves to be ostracised and generally outside of Wall Street. They were not all motivated by greed and certainly were not all Dennis Levines, but for a few, given the opportunity,the positions of power and the money, and now that they were 'In' they were going to change things around. Sales techniques and hustle was now more important than where you graduated from. Presentations to corporate boards were out, replaced with speadsheet analysis of cash flows and trades over the phones. The movement was towards allowing some who were previously spurned by Wall Street to get in on the action. They were going to shake up the system and as Milken himself said "tee up GM, Ford and IBM and make them cringe". I don't find the book villifying Milken as the Devil himself but then again it doesn't portray him in a positive light either. I don't have any problem with that because I am of the view that he was a crook. A brilliant, driven, powerful and extremely wealthy and well connected financial innovator but... still a crook. Overall the book is written with a bias towards the SEC investigation and uncovering of the insider trading scandal and the subsequent arrests of Levine, Boesky and Milken. From the perspective of 10 years on, the book is of more historical interest. All of the principals have served their time and most of the companies are gone (merged or metamorphosed). There are some interesting vignettes of people who since then have gone on to bigger and better things. You can read about Robert Rubin when he was still at Goldman Sachs, Rudy Giuliani when still US Attorney and Chuck Schumer when still only a Congressman who was critical of the SEC. There are also 8 pages of photos of the major players.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful Read on the "Greed" Decade
Review: The book was an excellent narrative, first off. Stewart does a fine job with the "action" part of the story. While it might be true that some of his analysis is off (see other reviews), it still gets the point across. While obviously Stewart has a pro-U.S. Attorney and SEC slant, if the book was entirely truthful (which indications say is so), then readers really have no choice but to come away with the verdict that Michael Milken, albeit a visionary in some sense and a great salesman, was really a crook who cost the taxpayers billions and unfairly ruled the junk-bond market with an iron fist. Especially interesting is Stewart's theory on how junk bonds contributed to the S&L debacle in the late '80's. All-in-all, the narrative is great, and the analysis seems to be decent. It really makes the blood boil, however, to learn how Milken especially duped the system and then got away with a too light sentence (although it actually could've been shorter had Milken had more common sense)
Rating:
Summary: Authoratative source on why junk bond are bad
Review: This book was recommended to me as an introduction to how corporate financing works (or has worked in the past). I found this book to be fascinating. Yes, it's long, and in some parts dry, but the author presents us with behind-the-scenes discussions of all the major players in the junk bond scandal of the 80's, leading to the S&L problems. Milken and Boesky are featured. The book goes into great detail about SEC enforcement, and how the dealers were finally brought to justice. I thought this was a great companion book to 'Barbarians At The Gate' (about the RJR Nabisco LBO calamity). Great book - highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Tintillating world of the reckless
Review: I became engrossed in this book, at times wanting to jump into Investment Banking, which was flovored by the 1980's tone and values that existed more prevalently during this time in American society. After this, one should explore Harvey Mackay's works. How could these four individuals: Dennis Levine, Martin Siegel, Michael Milkin, and Ivan Boesky, do so much before being held accountable? White collar crime is destructive, and destroys many lives. If the payoff is multi-millions, and the consequences are spending a short period of time in a country club, then the green light is on for greed and the "end justifies the means" mentality. I was able to correspond with James B. Stewart about this book and his other works.
Rating: 
Summary: Read an Objective Account Instead
Review: James Stewart should have known better than to rely entirely upon hearsay, and then feed the rumors to assist the unsavory, and many times unconstitutional, practices of New York prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani. It reads like a gripping tale of fiction, since most of the facts are invented, especially of Michael Milken. Stewart's naive understanding of high-yield debt financing and the very concept of leverage renders this book a mere gripe session for the author. His mathematics are innacurate and the emotionalism is copious. Although currently out of print, I suggest Daniel Fischel's "Payback: The Conspiracy to Destroy Michael Milken and his Financial Revolution."
Rating:
Summary: Greed ain't so good
Review: James Stewart's expose on the Wall Streets scandals of the go-go 80's reads like the Oliver Stone film come to life. The stories of such high flying white collar crooks as Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken and how they met their downfall is nothing short of fascinating. These were guys whose genius made them wealthy beyond most people's wildest imaginations, but for whom enough was never enough. Stewart is a first rate journalist and having worked for the Wall Street Journal, he came to be intimately familiar with the particular villians and the heroic agents and prosecutors who caught them. Anyone with an interest in criminology or a few bucks invested in a high risk stock ought to read this.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended - Easy for the Layman to Understand
Review: James Stewart has a knack for storytelling. Even something that could be potentially dry as all get out he explains clearly and without a lot of hoopla. It is, what it is and that's the truth. Some people think his work is biased but I was knee deep in all of this when it was happening. I saw the after affects of all the mergers and buyouts. I worked in a large financial institution that provided some of the funding for these deals and I was able to see the deals up close and personal. Stewart doesn't exaggerate a thing so all you guys out there crying he's biased you need a reality check. What he documents is how corporate America lost its soul. How the average worker was further displaced, how corporate america quietly lost (and couldn't figure it out later) the loyalty of its work force. The affects of downsizing (reduction in force) are exacting a terrible price today. Ever wonder where customer service went. It went out the window when workers realized that 30 years with a company meant nothing and that a CEO could get paid 5 million for just being there and he didn't have to be competent. Read it and think about it especially now that some time has passed since it was first written and tell me you don't get a chill down your spine.
Rating: 
Summary: AWESOME. Reads like fiction.
Review: This story is a classic one and everybody know it. But Stewart writes in an easy-to-read and compelling fashion that makes it like you're in the middle of the junk bond world of the 80's. Educational, fun and a must read for those starting out in the financial world.
Rating:
Summary: Ingenuity, greed, profiteering- This book has it all.
Review: This book lays out all of the insider trading securities laws violations that were so prevalent in the 1980's. Stewart writes in a way that is simple without being simplistic. Den Of Thieves is a fast-paced documentary that anyone will find enjoyable to read.
Rating:
Summary: Greed in a Banker's Clothing
Review: James Stewart's Den of Thieves is an absolute for students and Old Hands in the chameleon like world of proprietary trading. It's a mirror image of the fictionalized tale "The Bombadiers", which came out a few years ago. It also reminds me of a joke that used to go around the circuit - it went something like, Whats the difference between Tasmania and Goldman, Sachs? The answer, One is a country that earns $2.0 billion a year and shares it with 25 million people. Goldman, Sachs is a New York investment bank that earns $2.5 billion a year and shares it with 200 people. A must read for students of "the game".
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