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

Black Edge is about Steve Cohen and the 2013 insider trading allegations at his hedge fund SAC Capital. Sheelah Kolhatkar (a staff writer at The New Yorker) has an engaging writing style, but unfortunately the book is quite thin on substantive information, and the reader is left with little in the way of firm conclusions to draw about Cohen, SAC or insider trading in general. Much of this is the result of Kolhatkar’s lack of sources; while she includes highly specific details that make it seem as though the story has been well-researched, a lot of the interviewees were actually lawyers, FBI agents, fellow journalists, or others too removed to provide truly useful information. But the book is not without merit; it provides a useful look at how inside information is used, what a hedge fund really does, and how all financial firms at their core are trying to find a profitable edge — legal or otherwise.