Serpent on the Rock: Crime, Betrayal and the Terrible Secrets of Prudential Bache

This book is a reminder of the potential excesses in the financial services space. And this was 20 years ago. Kurt Eichenwald does a great job of writing a "Grisham like" novel - except it is true. The story revolves around the marketing and sale of limited partnership interests in various Prudential-Bache backed investments, and the rather questionable to downright illegal interactions among general partners, limited partners, investors and lenders. Sounds eerily similar to current news... The book is a great read, very entertaining, and enlightening given the topic. Makes you wonder what financial product is next, since the cycle appears to continue unabated.

Excellent and thorough book on Prudential by Eichenwald. A must-read for anybody interested in corporate greed. Like his books on Enron (Conspiracy of Fools) and Archer Danuels Midland (The Informant). Okay, I admit it; I'm a fan!

"Serpent on the Rock" is the first of Kurt Eichenwald's investigative works on the greed of corporate America. Eichenwald has made quite a reputation for himself dealing with large firms and the chain-of-mistakes that cause them to be disgraced. All three of his books read as good fiction. However, "Serpent on the Rock" does not quite reach the level of "The Informant" and "Conspiracy of Fools". "Serpent on the Rock" deals with the Prudential-Bache scandals of the late 80's and early 90's. Interestingly enough - much of logic that created the scandal seems to have been repeated with our current "sub-prime" meltdown. This alone makes it a must read. I will not give away too much of the plot, but it is familiar. A company begins activities that are on the fringe of legality. This gradually moves into completely illegal and immoral.... Which eventually blows up in their face. Next we have the cover-up. Eichenwald has written a very fast paced account of the Prudentail-Bache scandal, and should be a must read for all MBA students, so that may learn from history and not fall into this endless cycle of business on the fringe. 4 stars ONLY because it is not quite on the same level as "Conspiracy of Fools" and the "Informant" (both of which I highly recommend).

Its not the best written story of a financial scandal and overly relies on several characters for the facts and anecdotes. That written, it is a disturbing look at what was allowed to happen in the key mid-tier brokerage firm as controls lapsed in the pursuit of profits.

This is not Eichenwald's best book. But it's still better than 95 percent of the junk that passes for thrillers these days. In fact, I would be raving over this book if I hadn't read Eichenwald's "The Informant" and "Conspiracy of Fools" first. Those two set a very, very high bar. This one doesn't clear it completely, but it still gets darn close.