Black Edge
  • Published: 23 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780753552247
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

Black Edge

Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street

Formats & editions
Paperback
29 Jan 2018
EBook
23 Jan 2018
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A New York Times Bestseller, the real story of Damian Lewis’s character in BILLIONS: The rise and fall of Steven Cohen and the largest insider trading investigation in the history of Wall Street.

Nominated for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year
Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Amazon Top 5 Business Books of 2017


'A prodigious feat of reporting' - Malcolm Gladwell

‘Black Edge has the grip of a thriller … Everyone should read this book’ - David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of THE LOST CITY OF Z

How do super-rich bankers get away with it?

There is a powerful new class of billionaire financiers in the world, who use their phenomenal wealth to write their own rules and laws. Chief among them is Steven Cohen, a Wall Street legend, and the basis for Damian Lewis's character in BILLIONS, who built his hedge fund into a $15 billion empire on the basis of wizard-like stock trading, and who flies to work by helicopter and owns one of the largest private art collections in the world. But his iconic status was shattered when his fund became the target of a sprawling FBI investigation into insider trading, charged with using illegal inside information – or ‘black edge’ – to beat the market. His firm, SAC Capital, was ultimately indicted and pled guilty to charges of securities and wire fraud, and paid record criminal and civil fines of nearly $2 billion. But even as the company bearing his name pled guilty, Cohen himself was never charged, and is free to start trading publicly again from January 2018.

Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the grey zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the worldwide economy. With meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling, this is a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the US government’s pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of the financial world.
  • Published: 23 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780753552247
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368
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About the author

Sheelah Kolhatkar

Sheelah Kolhatkar is a former hedge fund analyst and staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes about Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and politics, among other things. She has appeared as a speaker and commentator on business and economics issues at conferences and on broadcast outlets including CNBC, Bloomberg Television, Charlie Rose, PBS NewsHour, WNYC and NPR. Her writing has also appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, New York, The Atlantic, The New York Times and other publications.

Praise for Black Edge

A modern version of Moby-Dick, with wiretaps rather than harpoons.

Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

If you liked James B. Stewart’s Den of Thieves, Sheelah Kolhatkar’s thrilling Black Edge should be next on your reading list.

The Wall Street Journal

A richly reported, entertaining tale about the cat-and-mouse game between the government and Cohen.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times Book Review

A lot of people do not trust Wall Street. They regard it as a moneymaking machine for those who work there, which has little interest in practice in its stated aim of channelling capital into businesses and helping them to grow for the broader benefit of society. For such sceptics, Steven Cohen is Exhibit A.

John Gapper, Financial Times

Excellent

The Economist

Masterfully deconstructing a massive web of Wall Street ... a true-life thriller with Shakespearian stakes ... Her chilling account of a blighted industry is as mesmerizing as a human story as it is as a financial one.

Fortune

One of the best books about the 2008 financial meltdown.

The Globe and Mail

There are few financial-industry struggles as titanic as the one portrayed in these pages

Reuters BreakingViews

Well-written, with pointed characterizations of the ambitious players and their motives, this book is highly recommended for readers interested in finance, crime, and politics

Library Journal (starred review)

A tour de force of groundbreaking reporting and brilliant storytelling, a revealing inside account of how the Feds track a high-profile target—and, just as important, an unsettling portrayal of how Wall Street works today

Jeffrey Toobin, New York Times bestselling author of AMERICAN HEIRESS

Black Edge is not just a work of major importance, it is also addictively readable—and horrifyingly compelling. Sheelah Kolhatkar pulls back the curtain on the cheating, corruption, and skulduggery that underlie large swaths of the hedge fund industry and some of Wall Street’s most fabled fortunes. This book is as hard to put down as it is to stomach.

Jane Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of DARK MONEY

Fast-paced and filled with twists, Black Edge has the grip of a thriller. It is also an essential exposé of our times—a work that reveals the deep rot in our financial system. Everyone should read this book.

David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of THE LOST CITY OF Z

Black Edge is a real-life thriller about the government’s attempt to get the legendary trader Steve Cohen on insider trading charges—and the lengths to which he goes to elude them. Using deep reporting and top-notch storytelling, Sheelah Kolhatkar is able to shed new light on one of the least known and most fascinating characters on Wall Street.

Bethany McLean, co-author of THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM

Black Edge is the story of the Justice Department's investigation into SAC Capital, and New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar has made it as gripping as a thriller.

Business Insider

One of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time ... Beautifully paced, jargon free, artfully arranged, deeply reported and properly researched... I wish all books were this good. You won’t regret reading this.

Om Malik

Well-written and well-reported, chock-a-block with ‘you-are-there’ moments.

Joe Nocera, Bloomberg

Kolhatkar has written a memorable and pathbreaking account of an era that is by no means over yet

The National Book Review

Black Edge reads like a legal thriller, except, it's all true. It also captures and defines an era on Wall Street when the only thing that mattered was: Black Edge

CNBC

Well worth the read. I couldn’t put it down

Investing.com

A potent book... an incisive social critique that slices through financial jargon and gobbledygook to accurately map the all-too-common corruption in America’s hedge funds that are sucking up billions and billions that used to be invested for the growth and benefit of society as a whole in building infrastructure, expanding existing and new businesses and creating jobs

Winnipeg Free Press

An utterly absorbing look at how Cohen pushed his traders to the limit—that "black edge"—and how he mostly insulated himself from the potential ramifications. This fast-paced, true-life thriller will leave readers enraptured—and troubled

Booklist

A prodigious feat of reporting

Malcolm Gladwell