Cohan begins with a heart-pounding account of the days leading up to Bear Stearns' near-bankruptcy and sale to J.P. Morgan and then traces the history of the firm through the stories of the men who built and then ultimately destroyed the company: Cy Lewis, Ace Greenberg, and finally Jimmy Cayne -- who was pushed out as CEO after his hands-off management style and primitive knowledge of finance had pushed the company past the point of viability. Then he goes back to the end of the firm and traces, in more detail, the collapse of the Bear Stearns hedge funds that ultimately spurred the demise of the entire company.

The most colorful character is of course Cayne, the man who, depending on whom you believe, was either golfing, playing bridge, or smoking marijuana while his company imploded. Cohan gets some great quotes from him: In Cayne's world, Tim Geithner is an audacious "prick" with "nothing, except maybe a boyfriend."

In addition to telling the story of the interesting people whose "hubris and wretched excess" destroyed one of Wall Street's most powerful firms, Cohan also finds space to address some of the larger systemic and corporate governance problems that led to not only the collapse of Bear Stearns but also excessive risk and leverage in the financial industry at large. Cohan believes that the switch from Wall Street firms as tightly-held private partnerships into bonus and stock option driven public companies led to excessive risk and a disregard for the importance of preserving capital. Before the stock market allowed investment bankers to sell their stakes in the company at a multiple of earnings, taking huge risks to increase earnings by a few percentage points wasn't worth it: But when a 10% increase in earnings was multiplied by a price/earnings ratio of 20, the risk/reward incentives became skewed in a way that wasn't in the best interest of long-term shareholders.

House of Cards is the first what will likely be many great books about the market crash, and is certainly worthy of a spot on the bookshelf of everyone who wants to understand the answer to that age-old question: "What the heck happened and where is my 401(k)?"