Reviews

Pickens, in case anyone needs to bereminded, is the independent Texas oil producer and financier who not long ago engineered, in his words, ``the largest corporate merger of all time''the Gulf Oil ``deal'' that increased Gulf stock prices to the immense profit of shareholders (including Pickens) while obliterating the giant corporation itself. This memoir gives an inside, often eyebrow-raising look at the workings of the oil industry as Pickens progresses from a hardscrabble, Texas Panhandle existence to small-scale oil well wild-catting with financing hard to come by; regional and national success with his Mesa Petroleum Co.; risky North Sea exploration during the OPEC oil ``shortage''; limited acceptance by industrial-establishment executives at hunting-lodge conclaves; the Gulf set-to and other, less spectacular deals. ``The entrepreneurial spirit,'' says Boone, ``is rooted in the desire to make money.'' (March 16)