The savings and loan mess is the greatest financial scandal in our nation's history. Over the course of the 1980s, that mess grew from a relatively modest problem early in the Reagan presidency to one that will cost an unimaginable $1 trillion - $4,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

S & L Hell offers the most complete account of the causes of the catastrophe, spotlighting the role of the bumbling regulators, greedy thrift operators, sleazy lobbyists, venal and foolish politicians, presidents and a White House staff that consistently ignored the disaster - and the few heroes who struggled gamely to combat the looming problem. Its account is told through the stories of the leading players, men like the S&L president who dressed like a king and served his guests lion and antelope meat; the U.S. League of Savings Institutions, lobbyists who spread money (and much more) through the halls of the Capitol; the powerful representatives and senators, cutting deals in hallways, cloakrooms, and remote offices, "lawmakers" whose roles the scandal helped drive from office; the happy-go-lucky public relations man in over his head, who, as chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, found himself called upon to prevent a fiscal collapse of epic proportions.

And the role that George Bush and his son Neil played in the debacle - a role much larger than the public has been made aware. By taking the reader into agency back offices and congressional committee rooms where the crucial decisions were being made - such as that to raise FDIC insurance to $100,000 - S & L Hell also explores questions of continuing importance: the inevitable dangers when regulators first coddle, then fall under the control of the industry that they are charged with policing, and when elected officials become beholden to special interests through campaign contributions and other often bizarre special favors. Told against the background of convulsive changes in the American financial system that doomed the mom-and-pop thrifts glorified in Its a Wonderful Life, S & L Hell's panorama of bankers and prostitutes, of members of Congress and Cabinet secretaries, is the ultimate story of greed in the 1980s - a story that we all will pay for over the decades to come.