This is the second book out on the 2002 demise of accounting powerhouse Arthur Anderson—and we are now 0 for 2. Like Toffler's (2003) book, this is an insiders' tale that offers some slow reading.

What is surprising is how different the two books are. It is hard to believe that they are describing the same events. Toffler describes Arthur Anderson as a firm with a corrosive culture of greed and dishonesty—a firm that deserved to fail. Squires et al, on the other hand, offer up a 185 page lamentation that a firm of 85,000 dedicated, hard working employees should be shut down because of the actions of a few "bad apples" down in Houston. "The prosecutors didn't have to indict the entire firm!" is a one-sentence summary of their book.

So where is the truth? Given the complexity of the events surrounding Anderson's fall, it is safe to say that neither book captures the entire truth—and both probably capture some of it. Together they do provide a more complete picture than either does alone. If you do read both, I recommend Chapters 1 - 6 of Tofffler and Chapters 1 and 4 - 7 of Squires et al. However, even this combined picture leaves much out. Neither book lets us get to know the key players as people. Neither book takes us down to Texas to see what was really going on in the Houston office. Both books' accounts of the firm's final months are unsatisfying—they read like they were cut out of a newspaper.