cover image The Prosecutors: Inside the Offices of the Government's Most Powerful Lawyers

The Prosecutors: Inside the Offices of the Government's Most Powerful Lawyers

James Brewer Stewart. Simon & Schuster, $19.45 (378pp) ISBN 978-0-671-49747-7

Stewart, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, concentrates on white-collar crime in this fine survey. Included are cases involving the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company charged with bribing Pakistani officials; Japan's Hitachi Company and allegations of industrial espionage; Morgan Stanley and insider trading; the Bank of Nova Scotia in connection with tax-shelter fraud; and the investigation of Edwin Meese on his nomination as attorney general. Readers are made aware of the clout large corporations wield, the power of prosecutors and the instructive fact that they spend little actual time in the courtroom. There are also portraits of several prosecutors, the most memorable of them Rudolph Giuliani of New York. Author tour. (September 28)