Gary Weiss

Gary Weiss has uncovered financial wrongdoing since the 1990s. Retail Gangster (Hachette Books, August 23, 2022), his fourth book, is an inside look at Eddie Antar---a marketing genius who turned a tiny Brooklyn store into the heart of a corporate empire, the largest retailer of consumer electronics in the northeast. Its name was Crazy Eddie. Wall Street swooned. The press fell in line. The public flocked to his stores. Only a few people knew that this wildly popular retail chain was built on fraud. Just about everyone who fell in love with Eddie---from his customers to investment bankers to close members of his family--were also his prey. Yet when he died in 2016, there was an outpouring of grief and nostalgia. How was that possible? As described in Retail Gangster, Eddie was a crook unlike any other in history. A product of exhaustive research, Retail Gangster is more than just the story of a criminal mastermind and his often wacky schemes. It is the story of a vanished blue-collar New York. Weiss's first book Born to Steal (Grand Central: 2003), described the Mafia's takeover of brokerage houses in the 1990s. Wall Street Versus America (Portfolio: 2006) is a detailed account of investor rip-offs.Ayn Rand Nation (St. Martin's, 2012) tells the story of how large segments of American society fell under the thrall of a Russian-born extremist.