You can’t help but admire a first-time author who takes on a difficult topic, and succeeds in explaining it in an informative, entertaining way. I’m talking about Erika S. Olson and her new book Zero-Sum Game: The Rise of the World’s Largest Derivatives Exchange.

Olson was an eyewitness to the bidding war in 2007 between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Atlanta-based InterContinentalExchange (ICE) for the Chicago Board of Trade. When the Mercantile Exchange and Board of Trade ultimately merged, the result was the financial derivatives powerhouse CME Group.