If there's one thing that reporters and producers love, it's an outspoken and accessible analyst.

It helps if they know what they are talking about. So you've got to be glad that for every 10 or so traditional sell-side analysts--worried about their standing with executives at covered companies and bent on making sure they don't undercut their employers' investment banking units--there's perhaps one Mike Mayo. He is not afraid to speak his mind, even if that mind wears a bit thin on his employers and fellow analysts.

His views are on full display in his new book, Exile on Wall Street. The Financial Times opines: "Mayo may be a presence in the press but, unlike some other analysts, that is not because he is a perma-bull or a perma-bear. He tells it straight, to the best of his ability--banks do not like it, investors sometimes like it and the media usually likes it."

And: "In a country that lacks institutional shareholders willing to speak out about the wrongs visited on them, Mayo is their proxy. Why did chief executives at KeyCorp and SunTrust, two large regional banks, pay themselves $20m each between 2008 and 2010 when they presided over vast losses?"

Guys like Mayo are a pain in the neck on conference calls and such. But the industry is better off for their colorful presence. 

For more:
- here's the review

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Why Bank of America shut out analyst Mike Mayo