This book is business reporting at its best. The story of William Agee and his move on Martin Marietta from the base of Bendix Corp is riveting stuff. And like so much else in life, there's an undertone of the doomed and ridiculous--here in the form of Mary Cunningham, the Bendix employee who becomes Agee's wife, and who weaves in and out of the big takeover story offering cookies to powerful business titans in the middle of big meetings.

I think Agee ended up running companies next to a golf course in California, several states away from his business operations, and Cunningham now ( I seem to recall) works with non-profits.

This book was assigned to our Mergers & Acquisitions class in law school, taught by a now-former head of "Corp Fin" at the SEC. It's easier to read a book like this, than to decipher all the technical rules governing how to run a proxy war to conquer an unwilling merger partner.

This book is also a warning to smaller capitalists, to stop yearning to be an IPO and "go public." Staying private avoids a lot of trouble, and keeps you out of the clutches of people like Agee.

Basically this book is the Cliff notes of the book Barbarians at the Gate. The book covers the management buy out of RJR and all the financial moves that took place to get it done. It covers the winners and losers and the tactics they used. It also does an adequate job of describing all of the plays involved. It is a good enough little book, some good details and the witting is not bad. If you really want all the details read the book Barbarians at the gate, it is a much more detailed and exciting book; the extra pages and detail do not slow it down at all.