During the 1980s nearly one-third of middle management employees of Fortune 500 companies lost their jobs during the period known as "merger mania." I was one of them.

Following a sixteen year career with one such company in Manhattan, at the age of 49, I found myself unemployed and "on the street" when mycompany was taken over by Wall Street sharks and broken up. I had been a salaried lawyer all my career but could not compete in that role given my salary expectations and competing with younger lawyers.

When I went to work for the company, it was squarely in the middle of the Fortune 500 list . The circumstances causing it to end up as a candidate for bankruptcy and target for ravenous speculators is a story all to itself.

The book tells how I got there, what happened on the way and how it all ended, all wrapped up in the glamour and excitement provided by the world's most prominent venue: New York City.