Blockers

"Blockers" was not a compliment. In the new Washington, it was the worst thing you could be, especially if you worked in the federal government and wanted to keep your job. A Blocker was a holdover, an impediment, someone who didn't get the message, and most of all someone who didn't belong. Michael Lewis found six of them.

Blockers is the story of people who believed they had a calling, who were convinced they were doing something the country couldn't do without, and then discovered they were no longer wanted. One kept Americans' most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands, and another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods, and another helped uncover the mysteries of cystic fibrosis. There was also a security guard.

The writer who made subprime mortgages gripping in The Big Short and turned baseball statistics into poetry in Moneyball here turns the early days of the Department of Government Efficiency into a thriller about federal employees. He also puts a clear question before the reader: if these public servants can't survive in government today, what does that say about us?