Looking for a good book on the fall of Bear Stearns? House of Cards is decent. Although I don't think the book was particularly well written, it does a good job of chronicalling the events that surrounded the distressed sale of the fifth largest investment bank to JP Morgan. William Cohan, who also wrote the history of Lazard, took a bit of a lazy approach in this book. Rather than recreating scenes like a good author will, he fills his stories with phrases such as, "So he says to me...and then I say to him... and then he says...." At times such writing can be frustrating to read.
The book was recommended to me by a former Bear employee, so I imagine it correctly captures the demise.
Next up for me is "Too Big to Fail" by the New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin. Whereas House of Cards spends most of its time describing the period of 2007 and 1Q 2008, Too Big focuses its time around the disaster that was the Fall of 2008. According to one review, they make good bookends to each other.
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