'Hugely enjoyable' - Observer

'Spectacular' - Aaron Brown, author of The Poker Face of Wall Street


Some people can make money. Other people can't. It's a thought that makes William Leith wake up in a cold sweat.

He doesn't know why it makes him feel anxious. After all, money isn't real. We created it. Humans did. It's our masterpiece.

But the desire for it is killing us.

It is this dilemma that sets William Leith off on an adventure into the bizarre, morally dubious, yet highly desirable world of the mega-rich.

He spends a day with the real-life Wolf of Wall Street who, not content with his hundreds of millions, devised a fraud so he could make hundreds of millions more. He visits a Baroque mansion where a Russian half-billionaire lives alone with his butler. He tours the estate of Felix Dennis, the maverick tycoon who commissioned an avenue of statues to tell the story of his life. He flies to private islands on private jets, meets private men in private clubs, experiencing the dizzy highs of a life without limits - but all it does is give him crippling anxiety.

Throughout it all he asks himself: what makes these people wealthy? And how come I'm not?

William Leith has worked as a columnist and feature writer at the Independent on Sunday, the Mail on Sunday and the Observer. His writing spans a wide range of subjects, from food to celebrity, cosmetic surgery, fashion and film. He has written about kings in Africa, political tension in Palestine, nightlife in Bangkok, Hollywood film directors, diet gurus and the death of James Dean. He is the author of The Hungry Years, Bits of Me Are Falling Apart and The Cut that Wouldn't Heal: Finding my Father.