Jonathan Beaty & S.C. Gwynne. Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of BCCI. 1993.

I wasn't sure a 361+ page book on a banking scandal would be readable. In fact, some of the scandalous banking practices were not easy to grasp, but, as the authors point our repeatedly, you will never understand BCCI if you think of it as a bank. The details about what this organization actually was are too unbelievable for me to be able to describe here without being accused of craziness. But if you have heard about Outlaw Bank and are wondering whether it is interesting (as I did), the answer is yes.

(I am still trying to figure out whether “conspiracy theory,” as the term is used, means “a theory about powerful people secretively working together to further their interests” or “crackpot delusion” (not that the former excludes the latter, just that the former is neutral and the latter is derogatory). If you accept the second definition, then either you need a new term whose meaning is the first definition, or you believe powerful people are too benevolent or disorganized to work together secretively to further their own interests. I am digressing to avoid discussing the contents of this book.)

As with Dark Alliance, Outlaw Bank is made compelling through a narrative structure outlining the reporters' discovery of this huge story that went off in all directions well beyond what they could print in Time (for whom they worked) or fit in this book, or, it is implied, reveal without risking the assassination of themselves or their anonymous sources. As far as I can tell, Jonathan Beaty has retired, and is hopefully still alive.