Towers of Debt

In this solid but lackluster report, Toronto journalist Foster has revised and augmented his account ( The Master Builders ), published in Canada in 1986, of the storied Toronto-based developers whose global real-estate empire, Olympia & York, collapsed in 1992. While the reclusive Reichmann brothers fostered a mystique based on their strict adherence to Orthodox Judaism, Foster suggests that the media, succumbing to a ``strain of reverse anti-Semitism,'' allowed the Reichmanns to hide behind a cloak of virtuous piety. Ultimately, Foster concludes, the Reichmanns' secrecy, coupled with bankers' deference to naked wealth, allowed them to borrow huge sums of money with little scrutiny. He suggests that older brother Paul Reichmann's fatal flaw was an obsession with deals. But the family's general lack of flair--as opposed to the Donald Trumps of the world-- renders this book better as a case study than as a page-turner. 35,000 first printing. (May)