The Fifth Risk

What happens when you put people with contempt for government in charge of the government? Lewis takes his eye for the untold story into the unglamorous—but, as he demonstrates, desperately necessary—reaches of the federal Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce departments to show just how indifferent the Trump administration has been to the everyday tasks of governing: predicting the weather, protecting us from nuclear waste, ensuring food safety. And in these bureaucratic thickets he finds some of his usual Michael Lewis heroes: brilliant analysts and unsung heroes of the everyday. His style is breezy, but his horror—and theirs—is palpable: no one shows up to do the work, and then when they do, it's only to open the door for looting.