The trick

Some people can make money, others can't. It's a thought that makes William Leith wake up in a sweat. He doesn't know why he's anxious. After all, money isn't real. We made it, humans made it. It's our masterpiece. But the desire for it is killing us. This dilemma propels William Leith on an adventure into the strange, morally dubious, yet highly desirable world of the wealthy. He spends several days with the real-life Wolf of Wall Street, who, not satisfied with his hundreds of millions, concocted a scam to make hundreds of millions more. He visits a Baroque palace where a Russian half-billionaire lives alone with his butler. He wanders into the estate of Felix Denis, a maverick businessman who commissioned a street of statues to tell his life story. He travels to private islands on private jets, meets elite businessmen at exclusive clubs, and experiences the ecstasy of life without limits—but all it does is give him intense anxiety. All the while, he asks himself: What makes these people rich? And why can't I?