Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre high-school pulp
Review: Poorly written, disjointed, odd mixture of non-fiction and poorly disguised fiction. I am amazed at some of the other reviews. The story is basically intriguing and exciting and promises much. It delivers almmost nothing. Gaping holes in information, most questions unanswered and/or unaddressed. A shoddy job by a third-rate hack of what might well have been a dynamite example of investigative journalism.
Rating: 
Summary: A few words from someone who lives in Decatur
Review: As a Decatur resident, I couldn't wait to get into this book and read the stories behind the headlines. I was not disappointed. Many of the names in the book are more than familiar to me. It was fascinating to relive the chronology, all the while remembering what kind of scuttlebutt was going about town at certain points of the story.Eichenwald has told this tale well. There are times when it is difficult to follow, but not due to the writer. There were just so many people involved, keeping them straight almost requires a white board and colored markers. The characters were depicted well. Between Whitacre's obvious instability and the government's inability to coordinate itself, it was like watching the Grinch's sleigh teeter on the tip top of the mountain. Will it crash or won't it? I did find a few errors in the story, but they were not central to the story. (E.g. there is no passenger train service in Decatur - I assumed the writer meant Springfield. And there were a few mix-ups concerning dates.) One word of caution to anyone who reads this book, however. It's easy to think of ADM as some faceless giant plundering its way through the agri-buisness world. But remember; the actions for which ADM was fined and three people were sent to jail are the actions of a few individuals. ADM employs thousands that put in an honest day's work every day. I am proud to call many of these people my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Begginning - Gets Better!
Review: The author has shown again that not only is he an excellent investigative reporter but a masterful writer as well. Keeping track of all the twists and turns in this story and keeping the reader totally immersed was no easy task, but Kurt does it with ease. This book should be a runaway bestseller so buy it now and be ahead of the "in the know" curve.
Rating:
Summary: And the extent of corruption?
Review: This is a book about what is wrong with American politics as much as it is with the corporate deceit and lack of ethics that led to the jailing of key executives of "The Supermarket of the World," Archer Daniels Midland. Although the reader will be struck by the personal tragedies that betook the principals involved in thr Archer Daniels Midland price fixing scandal, one also has to ask the question: if ADM showers millions on suspecting politicians, does the rest of corporate America do the same--and with the same results? And with the same bravado? (ADM executives laughted out loud at the penalties for campaign funding violations.) The outcome of campaign 2000, not just the White House, but the Congress as well, could well rest on the amount of special interest money collected and how it was spent. At this time, soft money contributions (corporate and special interest money--including labor unions--) are funding strategic political advertising placements at a record pace. And even John McCain can't do anything about it. The candidates won't discuss it during debates and both political parties continue the artifice of separation from the presidential campaigns while placing ads in battleground states--that are battlegrounds for electoral votes, not popular votes.
Rating:
Summary: Can't wait to see the movie!
Review: After all the novels about corporate espionage written over the years, this is one of the finest "true stories" of corruption I've ever read. Kurt Eichenwald tells a chilling story of corporate greed and conspiracy that rivals any Grisham novel. He takes you behind the corporate walls of ADM, (mostly familiar for it's advertising slogan "Supermarket to the world"), clearly abused its world power by coercing with competitors to manipulate the law of supply and demand...all the while racking up billions in profits. With the lives of the federal investigators forever changed, in the end you'll judge for yourself if justice was served. I guarantee you won't want to put this one down!
Rating:
Summary: Twisted truth
Review: An amazing story -- hard to put down. I have probably talked about this book to a dozen people in the last two days (since I finished it). Mark Whitacre is so disordered that I was left just shaking my head. The goverment infighting (FBI vs DOJ) is reminiscent of the fights between the DEA, FBI, CIA and DOJ in the "war on drugs". It is a mystery to me, given all the egos and stupidity in law enforcment, that criminals ever get convicted. . I agree that it would be nice to have an index because of the multitude of names and subplots.
Rating:
Summary: A book you won't put down!
Review: Mr. McInerney's review above says it all so I won't rehash it.I, too, read hundreds of books a year and this one tops the year 2000 crop at our house.Breathtaking story and stupendous writing make it the winner it is.
Rating:
Summary: Is Truth Stranger Than Fiction?
Review: On the rare occasions when the banal details of corporate crime are uncovered, developed and prosecuted, the inside story is sometimes difficult to believe. Even more often, these stories, particularly those involving complex financial chicanery, fail to survive the conversion to film or print. An obvious exception is "The Informant," Kurt Eichenwald's extraordinary new book about the Archer Daniels Midland Company price-fixing scandal in the mid-1990s. Mr. Eichenwald, an award-winning journalist at The New York Times, has balanced a cast of a nearly unimaginable characters with meticulous reporting and sourcing built on endless of hours of government tapes, documentary evidence and interviews. Mr. Eichenwald's masterfully constructed narrative describes how ADM, the self-styled "Supermarket to the World," conspired with international competitors to corner food additive markets. The book focuses on Mark Whitacre, the wildly contradictory former ADM executive whose secret cooperation with the FBI apparently was intended to hide his own crimes. As Mr. Eichenwald writes, the book is about the "malleable nature of the truth," and how nothing in the ADM case was necessarily what it appeared to be. Along the way, the story is told in a way that "lend[s] temporary credence to the many lies told in this investigation," according to Mr. Eichenwald. In the end, the book accomplishes what few of its kind have: it has woven an otherwise tedious collection of technical and legal details and deceptions into one of the best tales of corporate crime in the past 20 years. As the federal government found in its development of the ADM case, it's difficult to humanize corporate schemes, whether in civil or criminal litigation, or in the news or entertainment media. Mr. Eichenwald not only overcomes this obstacle, he has succeeded in producing a book that reads like a thriller. At one point in the book, in fact, a few of the characters even question whether Mr. Whitacre is acting out scenes from a John Grisham best-seller, "The Firm." Mr. Eichenwald also is fortunate to inherit an amazing cast of characters that includes not only Mr. Whitacre, the Andreas family, and high-level law enforcement agencies but also ADM's political network -- which at various times has included Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Dole, Dan Quayle, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and powerful Washington and New York law firms, among others. My admiration of the author emanates in part from his reporting of the Prudential-Bache financial scandal in the early 1990s, both in The New York Times and in his book "Serpent on the Rock." As a part of the legal team that successfully represented 5,800 victimized investors in civil litigation against Pru-Bache, I believe Mr. Eichenwald was unequalled among journalists in his command of that subject matter. Even then, where "Serpent on the Rock" succeeded nicely in chronicling the Pru-Bache scandal, "The Informant" excels. I believe that this book puts Mr. Eichenwald into the elite company of Jonathan Harr ("A Civil Action"), James B. Stewart ("Den of Thieves" and "Blind Eye"), Ken Auletta ("Greed and Glory on Wall Street"), and Bryan Burrough and John Helyar ("Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco").
Rating:
Summary: Cooperating Witness?
Review: In the antitrust case against Archer Daniels Midland for world-wide price fixing in lysine (a feed ingredient that makes animals grow more rapidly), the U.S. government relied on Mark Whitacre, an ADM executive. In legal terminology, he was playing the role of 'cooperating witness.' Eventually, three ADM executives would be sentenced to jail and a $100 million fine would be paid by the company to settle the case. But while Whitacre was cooperating at one level, he was not at many other levels. He informed the FBI of the conspiracy in the beginning, or there would have been no continuing investigation and no case. Although novels often have characters do things like that, it never happens in ordinary course. No executive in the middle of a price-fixing case had ever turned themselves in before. What a coup! Or was it? For something strange was going on. In the beginning, Whitacre had attracted the attention of the FBI by having reported to ADM that a competitor was sabotaging ADM's production of lysine with a virus. Soon in the investigation, Whitacre admitted to the FBI that this had never happened. Tipped off that Whitacre was flaky, the government relied on many lie detector tests and tape recordings to get the facts. What they never realized was that Whitacre couldn't tell a straight story if his life depended on it. Then came the biggest surprise. Just as the government took its case public, ADM came back with charges that Whitacre had been stealing millions of dollars from the company while serving as a cooperating witness with the government. The company was right, and Whitacre was successfully prosecuted for these thefts. ADM also tried to make the case that the FBI caused this to happen, but was rebuffed in its arguments. As a result of his double-dealing, Whitacre had blown his immunity agreement with the government and was one of the three ADM executives who were convicted of the price-fixing conspiracy. The story is written from the perspective of the FBI agents conducting the investigation. You will be fooled, along with them, as they pursue the case. It makes for the most complicated, convoluted set of events you can imagine. John Le Carre's stories are much simpler, by comparison. Although I had read about the case as it unfolded in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times (where Eichenwald covered it), the details came as a surprise in many cases. Eichenwald has gotten access to a tremendous amount of raw material including 800 hours of interviews with 100 people, 10,000 plus pages of data including secret grand jury testimony, and transcripts from secret recordings made by Whitacre. As a result, he has created a detailed dialogue of key events that reads like a screenplay. You will feel like you are there. The techniques are like fiction, but the material is fact. I cannot resist pointing out that this book reaffirms the maxim that truth is always stranger than fiction. Here's the author's wrap-up on the lessons here: 'But in the end, it was Mark Whitacre -- a person who remains as puzzling as he is tragic -- who was most most damaged by his falsehoods.' Certainly, one question you will have is how ADM could put such a kook in charge of an important product area. I can only report that in my career as a management consultant, I have met a number of such fakes in the ranks of senior management of client companies. Reference checking would have spotted any one of these frauds, as it would have with Whitacre. He had lied about his academic background (apparently over a third of job applicants do). So ADM was sloppy. In this subject of how frauds get ahead in companies, Eichenwald had the chance to make this book a broad perspective on the weaknesses of the American corporation at the end of the 20th century. He passed on that opportunity, which diminishes the potential of this otherwise wonderful book. What surprised me was that the FBI continued to lend any credibility to Whitacre as long as it did. The fakes I have met destroyed their credibility totally with me within four hours in each case. I wouldn't ever talk to them again. If someone is untrustworthy in one area, they are probably untrustworthy in all other areas. It looks to me like experience in working with criminals has made the FBI too used to being with criminals. The secret taping parts of the book are hilarious. The equipment is always proving to be untrustworthy, or the operator untrained, or is exposed by Whitacre for all to see. But he clearly loved the life as 007 (he called himself 0014, because he thought he was twice as smart as 007). So you'll have some comedy to alleviate your amazement at this unusual case. On the other hand, you'll be left with a serious question. How can these crimes be stopped if the government does not work with flaky informants and cooperating witnesses? They probably cannot. But much more needs to be done to supervise these criminals, lest they create much more crime in the process. A good reason for asking this question is because investigations begun since this case suggest that widespread price-fixing is more common than believed. A good lesson for you to consider is to ask yourself who, among those you know, is also a fake. Don't feel like you need to expose them. That could create unintended harm. But by knowing that they are frauds, you can better protect yourself against them. Who has asked you to do an unusual transaction? Who has asked you to keep a strange secret? Who has told you somethinhg totally weird? Be careful when these situations arise, for you could become an accessory to a crime if you cooperate with the person. That certainly happened to many people who knew Mark Whitacre. Be cautious in placing your trust!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Story...
Review: ...but don't plan to use it as a reference. At 549 pages and 559 endnotes, this book needs an index. Even a Table of Contents would help. It has neither, a startling fault for a hard copy work of non fiction in the internet era.
| 
