The foreign aid community plays the villain in this important book. Peter Griffiths tells an engrossing tale of his work as a consultant to the government of Sierra Leone, during which he ended up – to his surprise – trying desperately to convince the government to ignore the World Bank’s advice. Horrified by the corruption he finds, including among aid workers, he comes to believe that the Bank’s aggressive reform programs will cause political turmoil. It’s a one-sided account, and many in the development community will sense bias and mistakes on the part of the author. But they should still read the book – as an outsider’s no-holds-barred account of the perils of their profession, it has great value.