Only one investment bank contacted chose not to participate: Bear Stearns.

A decade later, the same rogue firm found itself in a liquidity crisis which ultimately led to its shotgun $2-per-share sale to JP Morgan Chase, with the Fed using $29 billion of taxpayer money to back the transaction.

This is where William Cohan’s House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street begins, chronicling play-by-play the demise of the firm that had survived the Great Depression, 1987 stock market crash and dot-com bubble burst. And the decision to not participate in Wall Street’s bailout of LTCM was the kind of brass-knuckle attitude Bear Stearns was known for.

Cohan’s vivid, deft writing style takes the reader onto the trading floor and conference room of 383 Madison Ave. during the roller coaster, chilling week of March 9, 2008 when Bear saw its final days. The story is told mostly from the personal recollections of first-hand sources, both named and anonymous.

The collapse is blamed on rumors put out by short sellers and others who had large financial incentives to see Bear fall. Those rumors led to hedge funds and investors pulling out their money in droves. The cash calls couldn’t have come at a worse time. The firm was already having difficulty meeting the increased margin calls by lenders, as Bear’s underlying collateral for its loans continued losing value due to a rapidly depreciating housing market. Essentially, the securities firm ran out of liquidity to cover its short-term borrowings.

The next part of Cohan’s solidly reported book chronicles the history of Bear Stearns and concentrates on three individuals who each led the firm at various points in its history: Silam “Cy” Lewis, Alan “Ace” Greenberg and James “Jimmy” Cayne. Cohan does a great job of bringing these characters to life and depicting how the seeds of self-absorption in the firm’s culture were planted in 1933.

The central figure in the book undoubtedly is Jimmy Cayne, CEO between 1993 and January 2008, who remarkably opened up to Cohan. The candid recollections even include misogynistic, homophobic off-the-cuff remarks from Cayne, who seemed to care more about playing bridge than his failing firm during critical moments. Cayne is still sore over the way the JP Morgan sale was handled.

At one point, Cayne berates Timothy Geithner, referring to him as a “prick” and mere “clerk” for announcing the Fed’s decision to open its discount window to investment banks on the same day as the humiliating JP Morgan sale was announced.

There were a number of factors which led to the end of Bear and Cohan explores them all: lack of management oversight, executive egos, CEOs holding the reins for too long, resentment towards Cayne and subsequent lack of concern over risky, complicated mortgage-backed securities by senior executive Warren Spector, the Clinton administration’s expansion of homeownership, lax lending standards and the firm’s own narcissistic, invincible outlook.

The third, and most troubling, section of the book details Ralph Ciotti and Matt Tannin’s creation of two disastrous hedge funds under the umbrella of Bear Stearns. The hedge funds were stuffed with toxic subprime mortgages and complicated derivatives and it is startling that these billion-dollar funds flew under the radar of senior management for so long.

Not only did investors lose billions of dollars when the funds’ value plummeted, but Bear’s reputation was also irreparably damaged. Many saw the hedge fund debacle as the beginning of the end for the firm.

The last part takes the reader six months forward, when Lehman Brothers was on the brink of collapse and last-ditch efforts to save the investment bank proved null. Bank of America’s $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch is chronicled as well. Cohan debunks the conspiracy theory that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s made a calculated decision to let Lehman go down, but saved AIG for the sake of his former firm, Goldman Sachs.

Former executives recall how Bear’s collapse was heartbreaking for those who saw decades’ worth of hard work evaporate in a matter of days. But it’s hard to feel sorry for them when you factor in the firm’s years of tactical business strategies, including its heavy reliance on short-term, “repo” borrowings and its decision to pack its balance sheet with mortgage-backed securities, which ultimately proved hard-to-sell and hard-to-value. Not to mention management’s lavish spending backed by hefty paychecks during the boom, including multi-million dollar homes around the country, private jets and a million-dollar Ferrari.

Although the personal quotes run long at times, House of Cards is a good read for economy enthusiasts who want to gain an in-depth understanding of how toxic mortgage-backed securities and the global credit crunch led to the downward spiral of one of Wall Street’s oldest firms. It puts into perspective how dire the situation was in 2007-2008 and how decisions that greatly altered our financial system were made under severe time constraints, often over a weekend. However, if you’re looking for personal accountability and remorse from former Bear execs, you won’t find it here.