...and slow, slower, slowest. This book tries -- but fails. Other reviewers have given it credit for explaining some of the complex math involved in hedging and trading but it fumbles this task. The explanations are too complex (and written in turgid prose) for the novice and grossly oversimplified (still written in turgid prose) for anyone with even a smattering of knowledge in this area. Insight into the principals of LTCM is non-existent; the author has no access to them. The prose style is consistently whatever the opposite of scintillating is. And the pace is leaden...far too much back story. This is a 224-page book (not counting the Afterword, notes and index). LTCM isn't even formed until more than halfway through (p. 125) and doesn't go bust (the most interesting part of the story; who would read a book about LTCM if it hadn't done so?) until p. 175. A waste of time.