The Best White Collar True Crime Books 2025

1. The Spider Network (Hardcover)

SHORT-LISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR The term "Libor" is obscure, but it determines a good deal of our financial lives-the interest rate on our credit card; our student loans; our mortgages; our car payments. How did a math genius, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system conspire to pickpocket you? They were in your wallet to already. In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world's largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor--the London interbank offered rate, which determines interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide--was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a shadowy team that used hook and crook to take over the process and set rates that made them a fortune, no matter the cost to others. Among the motley crew was a French trader nicknamed "Gollum"; the broker "Abbo," who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; an executive called "Clumpy" because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed "Big Nose." Eventually known as the "Spider Network," Hayes's circle generated untold riches --until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion. Praised as reading "like a fast-paced John le Carré thriller" (New York Times), "compelling" (Washington Post) and "jaw-dropping" (Financial Times), The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was warped and shady throughout.

The Spider Network (Hardcover)

2. Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend, (Paperback)

It was a time when anything seemed possible-instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury-and for a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi made it all come true. Promising to double investors' money in three months, the dapper, charming Ponzi raised the "rob Peter to pay Paul" scam to an art form. At the peak of his success, Ponzi was raking in more than $2 million a week at his office in downtown Boston. Then his house of cards came crashing down-thanks in large part to the relentless investigative reporting of Richard Grozier's Boston Post. A classic American tale of immigrant life and the dream of success, Ponzi's Scheme is the amazing story of the magnetic scoundrel who launched the most successful scheme of financial alchemy in modern history.

Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend, (Paperback) Author: Random House Trade ISBN: 9780812968361 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2006-01-10 Page Count: 416

3. Pre-Owned Whipping Boy (Paperback) 0062269496 9780062269492

Winner of the Edgar(R) Award for Best Fact Crime The true account of one boy's lifelong search for his boarding-school bully. Equal parts childhood memoir and literary thriller, Whipping Boy chronicles prize-winning author Allen Kurzweil's search for his twelve-year-old nemesis, a bully named Cesar Augustus. The obsessive inquiry, which spans some forty years, takes Kurzweil all over the world, from a Swiss boarding school (where he endures horrifying cruelty) to the slums of Manila, from the Park Avenue boardroom of the world's largest law firm to a federal prison camp in Southern California. While hunting down his tormentor, Kurzweil encounters an improbable cast of characters that includes an elocution teacher with ill-fitting dentures, a gang of faux royal swindlers, a crime investigator "with paper in his blood," and a onocled grand master of the Knights of Malta. Yet for all its global exoticism and comic exuberance, Kurzweil's riveting account is, at its core, a heartfelt and suspenseful narrative about the "parallel lives" of a victim and his abuser. A scrupulously researched work of nonfiction that renders a childhood menace into an unlikely muse, Whipping Boy is much more than a tale of karmic retribution; it is a poignant meditation on loss, memory, and mourning, a surreal odyssey born out of suffering, nourished by rancor, tempered by wit, and resolved, unexpectedly, in a breathtaking act of personal courage. Whipping Boy features two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 83 images throughout.

Title: Whipping Boy Book Format: Paperback ISBN10: 0062269496 EAN: 9780062269492 Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs Author: Kurzweil, Allen CONDITION - GOOD - Pre-Owned - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include 'From the library of' labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included.

4. Pre-Owned White-Collar and Corporate Crime (Paperback) 0131192884 9780131192881

This text is a part of a Prentice Hall Masters Series in Criminology which features brief books (100-200 pages) on special topics in Criminology. Written by two masterminds in the Criminology field, this text on White Collar & Corporate Crime by Gilbert Geis and Henry Pontell is scholarly A product of more than half a century of work on the subject, this is the first comprehensive examination of White Collar & Corporate Crime concepts.

Title: White-Collar and Corporate Crime ISBN10: 0131192884 EAN: 9780131192881 Genre: TRUE CRIME / White Collar Crime Author: Geis, Gill; Pontell, Henry; Geis, Gilbert CONDITION - GOOD - Pre-Owned - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include 'From the library of' labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included.

5. Treasury's War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare

Finalist for the 2015 William E. Colby Award For more than a decade, America has been waging a new kind of war against the financial networks of rogue regimes, proliferators, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates. Juan Zarate, a chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world. In this gripping story, he explains in unprecedented detail how a small, dedicated group of officials redefined the Treasury's role and used its unique powers, relationships, and reputation to apply financial pressure against America's enemies. This group unleashed a new brand of financial power-one that leveraged the private sector and banks directly to isolate rogues from the international financial system. By harnessing the forces of globalization and the centrality of the American market and dollar, Treasury developed a new way of undermining America's foes. Treasury and its tools soon became, and remain, critical in the most vital geopolitical challenges facing the United States, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the regimes in Iran, North Korea, and Syria. This book is the definitive account, by an unparalleled expert, of how financial warfare has taken pride of place in American foreign policy and how America's competitors and enemies are now learning to use this type of power themselves. This is the unique story of the United States' financial war campaigns and the contours and uses of financial power, and of the warfare to come.

Treasury's War

6. Pre-Owned Profiling the Fraudster: Removing the Mask to Prevent and Detect Fraud (Hardcover) 1118871049 9781118871041

Detect and combat corporate fraud with new profiling techniques Profiling the Fraudster: Removing the Mask to Prevent and Detect Fraud takes a step-by-step approach beyond the Fraud Triangle to identify characteristics in potential fraudsters, employees and new hires that will sound alarm bells before they get their hands on your organization's assets. The typical organization loses a staggering 5% of its annual revenue to fraud. Traditional fraud investigations focus on the breakdown of internal controls but what happens when the human beings forming a key component of that chain of control are inherently dishonest? This book shows you how to recognize the characteristics and behavioral patterns of potential fraudsters who are entrusted with safeguarding corporate assets. The book includes: An in-depth look at fraud investigation techniques and how these can be enhanced by using the characteristics of fraudulent behavior, A detailed look at profiling potential perpetrators of fraud, A detailed breakdown of how to compile a fraud profile, A discussion of a wide range of organizational fraud, including abuse of power, embezzlement, computer fraud, expense abuse, and more, Tables, illustrations, and diagrams to enhance the narrative If you're a corporate fraud investigator, auditor, forensic accountant, law enforcement professional, or anyone challenged with safeguarding your organizations assets-- Profiling the Fraudster shows you how to remove the mask and prevent and detect fraud.

Title: Profiling the Fraudster: Removing the Mask to Prevent and Detect Fraud ISBN10: 1118871049 EAN: 9781118871041 Author: Padgett, Simon CONDITION - GOOD - Pre-Owned - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include 'From the library of' labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included.

7. Best Business Crime Writing of the Year (Paperback)

9781400033713. New condition. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 272. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. From some of our most talented and perceptive crime writers--an entertaining anthology of true stories from the front lines of the war zone that has become American business today. - "Lovely and juicy. It's all about egos, excess, lack of caution." --USA Today A year ago it would have been difficult to conceive of an anthology of stories solely devoted to corporate malfeasance. Today, the challenge has been to keep it confined to one volume. From P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious "How To Stuff A Wild Enron," in which he compares trying to understand Enron's finances to trying to buy an airline ticket at the best price, to Marc Peyser's's perceptive look at that American institution, Martha Stewart, to Joe Nocera's investigation of how it all went wrong, the stories here are sometimes infuriating, often entertaining, and invariably informative. Includes: - "The New Bull Market" by Michael Kinsley from Slate - "In Praise of Corporate Corruption Boom" by Michael Lewis from Bloomberg News - "HardBall" by David McClintick from Forbes - "The Accountants' War" by Jane Mayer from the New Yorker - "Enron Debacle Highlights the Trouble With Stock Options" by Thomas Stewart from Business 2.0 - "Investigating ImClone" by Alex Prud'homme from Vanity Fair

From some of our most talented and perceptive crime writers—an entertaining anthology of true stories from the front lines of the war zone that has become American business today. • “Lovely and juicy. It's all about egos, excess, lack of caution.” —USA Today A year ago it would have been difficult to conceive of an anthology of stories solely devoted to corporate malfeasance. Today, the challenge has been to keep it confined to one volume. From P.J. O’Rourke’s hilarious “How To Stuff A Wild Enron,” in which he compares trying to understand Enron’s finances to trying to buy an airline ticket at the best price, to Marc Peyser’s’s perceptive look at that American institution, Martha Stewart, to Joe Nocera’s investigation of how it all went wrong, the stories here are sometimes infuriating, often entertaining, and invariably informative. Includes: • “The New Bull Market” by Michael Kinsley from Slate • “In Praise of Corporate Corruption Boom” by Michael Lewis from Bloomberg News • “HardBall” by David McClintick from Forbes • “The Accountants’ War” by Jane Mayer from the New Yorker • “Enron Debacle Highlights the Trouble With Stock Options” by Thomas Stewart from Business 2.0 • “Investigating ImClone” by Alex Prud’homme from Vanity Fair

8. Dishonest Dollars: The Dynamics of White-Collar Crime (Hardcover)

In an environment where corporate scandals fill the headlines and ethics courses have suddenly become standard fare in business schools, Terry Leap offers welcome insights into and useful ways of thinking about a critical problem that permeates our society. His main contribution is an integrative model of white-collar crime, which smoothly incorporates influences from sociology, psychology, public policy, and business. As he explains the process that occurs across the many different categories of crimes within organizations, he finds that there are more similarities than differences between "criminals in the suites" and "criminals in the streets."Leap's definition of crimes within organizations and the people who commit them are laid out in his first chapter. He then goes on to discuss the causes of and events surrounding white-collar crime, types of crimes and criminals, the decision-making processes of white-collar criminals, and the impact of these crimes. His concluding chapter predicts future trends in corporate crime, including an explanation of why we are likely to see more crime in health care. Throughout, Leap presents numerous specific examples and cases--from famous meltdowns such as Enron and WorldCom to less-publicized incidents including a weight-loss franchisee mislabeling doughnuts as low fat and a CEO of a South Carolina regional transportation authority misusing taxpayer money for lavish meals, personal expenses, and world travel.

Dishonest Dollars: The Dynamics of White-Collar Crime (Hardcover)