But it’s possible that the success of the first book has gone to their heads. That book was the product of creative tension; they admit they first encountered each other in a mood of mutual suspicion, each wondering what the other had to offer. This one seems to have been more of a love-in (in the acknowledgments, Levitt calls Dubner “a brilliant writer and creative genius” and Dubner calls Levitt “a great collaborator and wonderful economics teacher”). A bit more suspicion would not have gone amiss.
It says something that the real puzzle this book leaves you with is wondering about the skewed incentives that led two such talented people to write a book that does so little justice to those talents. Maybe that should be a subject for a third book, if there is one.
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