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24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America
This is the story of Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller, the two reporters who led the Wall Street Journal 's reporting on Enron and uncovered the unorthodox partnerships at the heart of the scandal through skill, luck, and relentless determination. It all started in August 2001when Emshwiller was assigned to write a supposedly simple article on the unexpected resignation of Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. During his research, Emshwiller uncovered a buried reference to an off-balance-sheet partnership called LJM. Little did he know, this was the start of a fast and furious ride through the remarkable downfall of a once highly-prized company. Written in an intense, fast paced narrative style, 24 Days tells the gripping story of the colossal collapse of what would become the world's most notorious corporation. The reader follows along as Smith and Emshwiller continue to uncover new partnerships and self-dealing among the highest levels of Enron's management. As they publish articles detailing their findings in the Journal, Wall Street and individual investors have a crisis of confidence and start selling Enron stock at unprecedented levels of volume. In the end - 24 short days later - Enron had completely collapsed, erasing 16 years of growth and losing $19 billion in market value while watching the stock drop from $33.84 to $8.41. Not only was the company destroyed, but investors and retired employees were completely wiped out-all the while Enron executives were collecting millions of dollars. Climaxing with this 24-day period, this book shows the reporter's-eye view of a David-and-Goliath battle between journalists and a giant corporation. Each day a new story uncovered another fact; each day the company issued denials. And when the investigative stories reached critical mass and momentum, the stock market cast its final vote of no confidence. In the tradition of Indecent Exposure and Barbarians at the Gate , two other gripping narratives that began as a series of Wall Street Journal stories and ended up as books that defined an era, 24 Days brings the importance of great investigative journalism to life.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 11, 2018
Fascinating. You don’t have to be a financial expert to understand the various schemes. This was written in 2003, before Ken Lay mysteriously died after his sentencing.
October 11, 2008
Intrigued by the prospect of discovering how the WSJ went about its process of investigative journalism, I started in hungrily on this. It didn't disappoint, especially for the 1st three-quarters of it. Even if you're not that interested in the details of Enron's fall, the way the reporters pieced their early scoops together really shows how much it was the result of using common sense to put many many pieces of a puzzle together. It kicked off with an uncharacteristic resignation by a CEO, then ranged from obscure financial descriptions, nurtured sources from years of earlier work, a lot of background understanding of how energy markets worked, knowing when to trust and how to read the reactions of a company PR man, dropping hints in stories of potential findings and relying on reader's confidential feedback to pick up new leads... etc, etc. What was very curious to me, too, was their detailed descriptions of key character's personalities, families, career history, motivations. I think this distinguishes the journalist/detective from the legal prosecutor, the latter is trying to make a criminal case, and thus requires hard evidence that can be pieced together, and cannot rely on guestimates formed through inference of a person's motivations. Yet sometimes those hunches are critical. In this sense it reminds me of Chesterton's short stories, where the crime is often solved by trying to understand the criminal's motivation, then fitting the facts around that cornerstone.
The last chapter goes slowly though, it's thick into unravelling the lessons from Enron, and reads like an extremely long op/ed. Still, on the whole, excellent.
The last chapter goes slowly though, it's thick into unravelling the lessons from Enron, and reads like an extremely long op/ed. Still, on the whole, excellent.
April 25, 2025
yes corporate greed is real! yes a bunch of FRAT BROS running a major multi billion dollar corporation are going to scam and fraud and lie and cheat! idk why anyone was surprised frankly. also i cannot overstate how much i don’t like math economics or accounting like oh my god boring
March 5, 2015
the Fall of Enron & Public Confidence
This is the first book I've ever read with my mouth periodically falling wide open. I couldn't believe the things I kept seeing.
Born of a merger between two electricity companies, Enron corp rose over the years to be America's dominant player in the electricity business. Turning handsome revenue margins quarter after quarter, it was America's and wall street's darling. Until the scandals struck.
In a routine SEC filing, wall street journal reporters Smith and Emshwiller discover information hinting at suspicious activity. When they go digging what they uncover is nothing short of startling.
From the now infamous LJM partnerships run by Enron's CFO and aimed at trading with Enron on a private level to boost it's reported balance sheet, to revelations of massive payoffs by top executives and accounting misdeeds by Anderseen, Enron's auditors, to help it cover up it's missteps, the two reporters shocked the world.
The book is their tell-all on how they, Smith and Emshwiller, stumbled upon the story from day one and how they uncovered information along the way. It's a story of how glorified executives swindled their shareholders, gaining massive revenue and wrecking the public's future confidence in essential institutions in the process. A story of the greed and large scale collusion that came to define wall street and American big business, it will make you reflect on integrity and the need for the good guys in the world.
I left this book not only having been intimately aquatinted with the Enron scandal from the reporters who covered it, but also challenged on the need for integrity and ethics in business. A worthy read for any entrepreneur.
This is the first book I've ever read with my mouth periodically falling wide open. I couldn't believe the things I kept seeing.
Born of a merger between two electricity companies, Enron corp rose over the years to be America's dominant player in the electricity business. Turning handsome revenue margins quarter after quarter, it was America's and wall street's darling. Until the scandals struck.
In a routine SEC filing, wall street journal reporters Smith and Emshwiller discover information hinting at suspicious activity. When they go digging what they uncover is nothing short of startling.
From the now infamous LJM partnerships run by Enron's CFO and aimed at trading with Enron on a private level to boost it's reported balance sheet, to revelations of massive payoffs by top executives and accounting misdeeds by Anderseen, Enron's auditors, to help it cover up it's missteps, the two reporters shocked the world.
The book is their tell-all on how they, Smith and Emshwiller, stumbled upon the story from day one and how they uncovered information along the way. It's a story of how glorified executives swindled their shareholders, gaining massive revenue and wrecking the public's future confidence in essential institutions in the process. A story of the greed and large scale collusion that came to define wall street and American big business, it will make you reflect on integrity and the need for the good guys in the world.
I left this book not only having been intimately aquatinted with the Enron scandal from the reporters who covered it, but also challenged on the need for integrity and ethics in business. A worthy read for any entrepreneur.
March 26, 2011
This book hit the nail on the head when explaining what rally did happen that brought on the fall of our current economy. This book addressed Enron and other companies who were running their companies like Enron and how that took us all down to the little guy. This is an eye opening book that will change your view on the whole crisis forever. You will understand how things came to be and more. Many times while reading this book, you will be shaking your head, and talking out loud to 'ah-ha' moments. This is an unbelievable book that tells the truth as to what really happened.
April 12, 2020
First book I have ever read about Enron. A light, fast read, but so disappointing, in 4 or more ways.
1) Confession: I'm a retired Wall Ster with many ties in the short-selling community of the '90s, incl a very good friend who was involved with some of the deep research being done on Enron BEFORE it announced the fateful quarter. I read this mostly to see what names they'd drop, both on the sell-side & among the short-sellers. In the early 2000s, I was taking a few years off, so I wasn't in the daily flow.
Well, for short-sellers, they mentioned a few, described a couple & named only 1, because that guy got on a conference call. Boo. I can tell you with certainty, the US govt & lawyers were getting far better info & analysis about Enron from short-sellers than they ever got from reporters.
2) The accounting knowledge in this book is terrible. I understand that reporters aren't accountants or even MBAs, but 95% of the time, they just say "We didn't understand this." or "That was too complex for us." What? They should have had an actual accounting explanation of what was going on. I swear they frequently conflated a SPE that was buying assets FROM Enron with an SPE that might be buying assets FOR a company. If you're going to write the book, pay for some expert input.
3) They run chronologically through some of their daily activities until about EO2001. Then they backtrack & start going through more detailed (but as stated above, not detailed enough) reveals about what various people were doing in that time on a few specific topics. It is not confusing, but it is a messy way to organize a book.
4) The editing is awful. They must have REALLY rushed this out. There are things maybe every 5th - 10th page that make you wonder if anyone really did edit it.
1) Confession: I'm a retired Wall Ster with many ties in the short-selling community of the '90s, incl a very good friend who was involved with some of the deep research being done on Enron BEFORE it announced the fateful quarter. I read this mostly to see what names they'd drop, both on the sell-side & among the short-sellers. In the early 2000s, I was taking a few years off, so I wasn't in the daily flow.
Well, for short-sellers, they mentioned a few, described a couple & named only 1, because that guy got on a conference call. Boo. I can tell you with certainty, the US govt & lawyers were getting far better info & analysis about Enron from short-sellers than they ever got from reporters.
2) The accounting knowledge in this book is terrible. I understand that reporters aren't accountants or even MBAs, but 95% of the time, they just say "We didn't understand this." or "That was too complex for us." What? They should have had an actual accounting explanation of what was going on. I swear they frequently conflated a SPE that was buying assets FROM Enron with an SPE that might be buying assets FOR a company. If you're going to write the book, pay for some expert input.
3) They run chronologically through some of their daily activities until about EO2001. Then they backtrack & start going through more detailed (but as stated above, not detailed enough) reveals about what various people were doing in that time on a few specific topics. It is not confusing, but it is a messy way to organize a book.
4) The editing is awful. They must have REALLY rushed this out. There are things maybe every 5th - 10th page that make you wonder if anyone really did edit it.
May 27, 2021
This was my third Enron book to read. I liked this book because I'm fascinated with how reporters "make the sausage." Thus, it wasn't as much in-depth in terms of how Enron become a corrupt company or the dynamics between all the players. I liked that it did go into the Arther Anderson trial. For someone who isn't as familiar with Enron, this might leave some people missing out on key stories about Enron.
March 9, 2018
an outstanding book that sheds light of the machintions that corporate america is capable of. well worth rading!
October 2, 2018
Excellent depiction of the outstanding journalism and the insanity of the Enron debacle.
January 19, 2019
Good, but it finished too early. We never got to hear about the lay and shilling trials!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2021
This was mostly good, and I finally understand what the Enron scandal was all about, kinda. But it was 300 pages too long, and I still had to Google what happened to Ken Lay.
March 25, 2022
Super slow read. I actually quit 1/3 the way and read the Wikipedia version of Enron. Saved me at least a week of reading.
April 30, 2014
This book recounts the fall of Enron, as viewed, and reported, by two reporters of The Wall Street Journal.
I felt that this book had little to offer that had not already been covered in other books on this subject. The authors seem to have tried to fashion their narrative in the mold of "All the Presidents' Men", casting themselves in the roles of Woodward and Bernstein. But that approach simply didn't work. To start with, Smith and Ermshwiller didn't even work in the same location, and conference calls simply don't create the same amount of tension that you see when two people are working side-by-side. Second, in the more famous Watergate book, you truly have a sense of two young men dedicating their entire existence to ferreting out a scandalous truth - no family, no social life to distract these intrepid newspapermen from the search for the Truth. Here, we seem to be dealing with regular folks who need to take their kids to school or take a spouse on an anniversary trip. Rather humdrum, really. No late night calls, no midnight meetings, no Deep Throat. Day-to-day journalism, probably of a high caliber, but not really exciting.
And finally, I felt that they did not do a particularly good job of explaining Enron's convoluted financial dealings. Perhaps this comes with their territory - as WSJ reporters, they may have targeted this book at a more financially sophisticated readership.
In summary : this book is not bad, but it is dull. The authors have somehow managed to scrub a fascinating story of corporate irresponsibility, of larger-than-life personalities, of growth and then decline, of wild spending and staggering losses, of all of its bite, and to turn it into something plain-vanilla.
I felt that this book had little to offer that had not already been covered in other books on this subject. The authors seem to have tried to fashion their narrative in the mold of "All the Presidents' Men", casting themselves in the roles of Woodward and Bernstein. But that approach simply didn't work. To start with, Smith and Ermshwiller didn't even work in the same location, and conference calls simply don't create the same amount of tension that you see when two people are working side-by-side. Second, in the more famous Watergate book, you truly have a sense of two young men dedicating their entire existence to ferreting out a scandalous truth - no family, no social life to distract these intrepid newspapermen from the search for the Truth. Here, we seem to be dealing with regular folks who need to take their kids to school or take a spouse on an anniversary trip. Rather humdrum, really. No late night calls, no midnight meetings, no Deep Throat. Day-to-day journalism, probably of a high caliber, but not really exciting.
And finally, I felt that they did not do a particularly good job of explaining Enron's convoluted financial dealings. Perhaps this comes with their territory - as WSJ reporters, they may have targeted this book at a more financially sophisticated readership.
In summary : this book is not bad, but it is dull. The authors have somehow managed to scrub a fascinating story of corporate irresponsibility, of larger-than-life personalities, of growth and then decline, of wild spending and staggering losses, of all of its bite, and to turn it into something plain-vanilla.
February 28, 2014
The Smartest Guys In The Room provided a better analysis of Enron's rise and fall, but this was interesting for showing how the lies unraveled in the public arena. Points off for being a little too cutsey in telling me bits about the journalists to make me like them better--I don't care if they had to reschedule morning conference calls because they were getting their kids ready for school. I wish they didn't keep explaining how they called people over and over again when all they said was "No comment." Points for accurate, occasionally amusing descriptions of Houston. A book worth reading but also immediately getting put on my paperback swap list.
June 4, 2012
I read this book because I couldn't find my copy of A Conspiracy of Fools, which I typically read annually. I liked getting the outsider perspective on the collapse of Enron from folks who were deeply involved with it--The Smartest Guys in the Room and ACoF both concentrate on the deeper story; having read a few books on Enron, it was useful for me to be reminded of the collapse as it appeared to the outside world. Well-written, though with a few annoying bits of personal trivia that was mildly distracting. Overall, a good complement to the canon.
May 7, 2016
I enjoyed this book a lot, less because of the particular perspective of the journalists, and more because of the story. This is the only Enron book I've read, but I've seen the documentary based on the book The Smartest Guys in the Room. I think the truly interesting part of the Enron scandal are the people, and this book straddled the line between covering the reporters and the people at the company. I was hoping for this to be a "Too Big to Fail" but for Enron, and while I enjoyed it a lot, it fell a bit short of my high expectations.
January 14, 2010
A great overview of the decline and fall of Enron. Written by two Wall Street Journal reporters who were instrumental in finding the original partnerships that showed the length that Enron was going to inflate earnings, it does an excellent job of explaining to readers what was going inside. It's fast-paced and understandable even if you don't know a whole lot about accounting or corporate finance.
December 29, 2012
It's a bit slow at times and uneven between the two authors, but a very interesting read for anyone interested in financial reporting. Don't expect any bombshells or revealing new insights into why the Enron executives did what they did. This is a book about covering the Enron meltdown more than it is a history of that meltdown, though it has enough of the history to be an education for anyone not already well-versed in the plot points of the energy trader's demise.
February 8, 2011
This book relates the story of how two Wall Street Journal reporters uncovered the Enron story. I had hoped for more clarity on the Enron debacle but found the details in the book dizzyingly confusing which made the reading boring. There were a few nuggets of info, but not enough to give this a higher rating.
August 5, 2011
All in all "24 Days" was a fairly disappointing book. The book focuses on recounting the activities of the WSJ journalists writing about the events leading up to the Enron collapse and bankruptcy. I was really hoping for a book which would help piece together what happened and what the root causes were. The book provides glimpses, but doesn't really give you a full picture of what happened.
May 10, 2012
Book by the two WSJ reporters who broke much of the Enron story. The book was focused on how they went about their reporting and the digging they did to get the facts. While it covered some of the issues surrounding Enron, it empahsized the investigative process and very interesting.
April 28, 2014
Some good detail, but I found the book slow-moving, particularly for a breaking story that was so fast-paced. The two writers have different styles, and you could tell when it jumped from one to the next. Interesting, different, but not my favorite.
April 2, 2007
Surprisingly bland and dry given the topic. It reads like a really long newspaper article. It needs more zip. Or something.
July 14, 2008
If you like this sort of read, it's really fast.
June 17, 2011
Deregulate anything and everything in the US? Sure, let the foxes run the henhouse. Enron is a good example of how well that works out.
March 30, 2013
A should-read company profile for knowledge workers, managers, directors, C-levels, and entrepreneurs.
July 18, 2013
Fascinating to read
January 3, 2014
As much about journalism as the collapse of Enron, this was an interesting but slow read -- one of those books I enjoy as I'm reading it, but struggle to pick up between times.
February 12, 2016
A really terrific book, very engaging and well written. It was like reading a crime thriller at times.
September 22, 2016
Excellent read. Gives a ringside view of the most notorious scandal of recent history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews