?Hedgehogging?, by Barton Biggs, is a collection of anecdotes, investment highs and lows, portraits of friends and eccentric characters and reflections on a vigorous professional life in the investment world. Mr. Biggs states categorically that all tales are true, except for one and he has taken care to change personalities and events although there are real people interspersed throughout.

Hedgehogs, according to Mr. Biggs, are strange, insecure, fascinating creatures, preying on each other and other investors in the battle for investment survival.

His credentials are impeccable. He spent 30 years at Morgan Stanley where he formed their research department and the firm?s investment management division presiding as its chairman. Institutional Investor magazine poll ranked him as the top global strategist from 1996-2003. He has appeared on CNBC and numerous other programmes more than 300 times.

Mr. Biggs (and two colleagues left Morgan Stanley) to form Traxis Partners (the largest new hedge fund of 2003) which now has well over one billion dollars under management In the spring of 2003, Mr. Biggs and two colleagues left Morgan Stanley Asset Management to launch a new hedge fund. According to his book, hedge funds and their managers have the career expectancy of rock stars with the average life of a hedge fund only four years. Mr. Biggs and his partners appeared at a conference to raise money for their new hedge fund road show at the Breakers, Palm Beach Florida. In his words: ?There are many tribes at the conference. First, there are the professionals, who come from the big funds of funds, foundations, endowments, and pension funds. They have bored, cynical stares and limp handshakes. This conference is purely business to them, and they are here to appraise the horseflesh. The American men wear suits and have sweaty armpits. The women are tall and lean and plain. By contrast, some of the Royal and Ancients from the big London Fund Of Funds have striped blue shirts with white collars and double-barrelled names and chins.

?The Swiss, with their pinched lips and dark blue business suits, seem aloof and cynical as they chatter away at each other in French and Schweizerdeutsch. This group of professionals are the serious seekers with the big money. They could give us $25 million or even $50 million at a crack, but they are notorious for redeeming their money at the first sign of any faltering. We have chosen to have a clause in our partnership agreement that prohibits withdrawals for the first year. However, the Swiss make no bones about not liking our first-year lockup.

?Then there is the rest of the crowd, the amateurs, mostly wealthy individuals and small, wannabe funds of funds. Germans with bulging eurobellies from family offices mingle with bloated Arabs in pale suits and white shirts, their handshakes as cool and clammy as snakeskin. Former investment bankers exchange distinguished lies with portly ex-diplomats, permanently deformed by self-importance.

?Wrecked old Texans with faces like road maps, sour breath, and fitted Hawaiian shirts chatter with fast talking private wealth bankers from Miami with pompadours and slicked back hairdos. Retired, vastly rich investors with private jets, homes in three climates, and Botox-smoothed foreheads namedrop and talk about their golf games as their bored wives and sleek and skinny girlfriends, social X-rays suffering from anorexia richiosa, babble about dude ranches and plantations. Wealthy divorcees and widows with artificial brightness in their unpouched eyes and hard chiselled faces and tucked stomachs and bottoms, work the crowd. Are they looking for a man or a hedge fund? They have smiles for you like cold leftovers.?

At this scene, Mr. Biggs states that he feels strange and disoriented, but I just want to read on.

There are other stories: short selling oil and managing to survive to tell the tale. What makes a superstar investor? You are only as beloved as your most recent performance. Three investment religions: growth, value and agnostic. Just because you are a snake does not mean you are not a moneymaker. Particularly intriguing is the story of ?Jim the Trigger: Invest First and Ask Questions Later?. As told by Mr. Biggs, Jim is an investment manager who unfailingly gravitating to where the fast money is. He has spent his career riding the boom and bust train. Certainly, the advent of the hot Internet market in the late 1990s was just his cup of tea as around that time, he was running a tech fund for a big aggressive mutual fund company in Denver. Needless to say, I immediately thought I knew which company Mr. Biggs is referring to (starts with J) simply because of the spectacular losses their funds posted after the tech boom sank. But, I presume too much.

As one tiny cog working in the enormous investment market wheel, I think ?Hedgehogging?is a fascinating, clever and amusing book. I could not put it down and I have read (or ploughed through) my share of investment books of one kind or another. In one of the later chapters, titled, ?Great Investment Managers are Intense, Disciplined Maniacs?, Mr. Biggs discusses at some length the characteristics of a great investment manager by using an analogy of being a coach of a National Football League where the smartest, best-organised, hardest-working team with the most talent and most cold-blooded management wins. In other words, nice guys finish last! Somehow, though I could not help but feel that Mr. Biggs cares deeply about his employees, his clients, and his industry.

He is an excellent writer and in spite of the fact that he specifically states that his book is not an investment primer, there are experience nuggets to be gained in many sections. If you?ve got your money dug into just one hedge fund, reading it may make you uneasy. He does, however, provide an endorsement of well-run fund-of-funds hedge fund structures that despite higher fees are probably the best investment vehicles (of the hedge fund crowd) for the smaller investor (and many institutional managers).

?Hedgehogging? by Barton Biggs, $26.95, published by John Wiley & Sons Inc.