Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating story, brilliantly written
Review: Were this a review of a novel, I would criticize it for an overcomplicated, convoluted and essentially unbelievable plot. But it is a true story, one that will rivet your attention and leave your head spinning.The basic story, that the large agri-business Archer Daniels Midland - ADM - was caught in an international price-fixing scam for food additives would merit coverage in Business Week but little else. The key to the story is the informant himself, Mark Whitacre, the President of one of ADM's largest and most successful divisions. Manipulative, deceitful, delusional, sociopathic ... these are accurate but inadequate descriptions of the man who sucked ADM, the FBI and the DOJ into a five-year whirlwind, played out on the headlines of every newspaper in the country; he will suck you in, too. Who hasn't wondered what kind of knucklehead responds to those crazy scam letters and emails from Nigeria? Actually, so many Americans with access to large amounts of cash responded in the 1980s and 1990s that the FBI had to set up a special liaison office in Lagos to deal with them. Meet Mark Whitacre: brilliant biochemist, builder and President of a hugely successful division of a multi-national corporation; and hopelessly entangled by his crazy belief that he could hit the jackpot by aiding corrupt Nigerian officials. And more, much, much more. The story will sweep you along, from one unbelievable plot twist to another, not reaching a crescendo until the very end. Great fun. But also a great testament to the American justice system. Battered on all sides by the media and politicians and wealthy corporate defendants and with an utterly unreliable witness, the FBI and the DOJ persevere and see their case through to what seems like a very satisfactory conclusion, all the compromises and plea bargains notwithstanding. Eichenwald deserves great credit: not only for his real-time coverage of the story in the New York Times and the writing of this brilliant book, but also for the fact that he nearly simultaneously was covering the astonishing demise of Bache Halsey Stuart Shields in the Serpent On The Rock, another amazingly readable true story of human frailty.
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