Ignorance is bliss? Ken Lay may have been as clueless as his lawyers claim. It shouldn't matter.

• Author: Lavelle, Marianne

Conspiracy of Fools

By Kirt Eichenwald

Broadway, $26.00

When Enron collapsed three years ago, it was reasonable to anticipate the story that would one day be told of how the nation's seventh-largest company lost its way. Maybe the once-lean energy machine had bloated up on dot-com excess until it burst. Or perhaps California's insane electricity deregulation scheme and its lure of easy money had crazed corporate executives in Houston who were otherwise sane. But in Conspiracy of Fools, Kurt Eichenwald leaves no doubt that the criminal enterprise and deranged mismanagement at Enron were firmly established years before the tech boom peaked or rolling blackouts dimmed the Golden State.

Of course, one cannot help but ask whether many people will want to read 750 more pages on the late, unlamented giant. Other purportedly definitive accounts of the Enron saga were published more than a year ago, not to mention the ink that was spilled during the scandal's unfolding and subsequent probes and trials. For all that, Eichenwald's meticulously research-ed volume will captivate readers beyond those poor souls (myself, alas, among them) who still can't get enough of the Enron tale. His hook is chilling exploration of how far down the road to destruction any venture can travel when a collection of supremely self-assured but wrongheaded minds are given enough power. (Some readers might discern parallels, for instance, with governments past or present.) And it's also a really good read.

Eichenwald, who spent three years covering the scandal for The New York Times, too kindly uses the word "fools" to describe the characters who built up and brought down Enron. Other terms would have been apt: lunatics, greedsters, idiots.

Former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling comes across as a man barely holding it together. Long before the year he both took on and abdicated Enron's top post, he was drinking too much wine, putting on extra pounds, spiraling into bouts of depression and self-pity, and veering between overweening ambition and an impulse to cast aside his career. In one weird scene, he compulsively punches his console to pick up every ringing phone on the floor during an interview with a prospective executive employee. Yet none of the calls are for him; he just transfers them as if he's the receptionist.

The aspect of Skilling's dysfunction most relevant to Enron's demise, however, was his inclination to treat the ability to perceive bad news as a sign...