Fall

Robert Maxwell was a decorated WW2 veteran, a massively successful publisher and a major press baron. He was a friend to the rich, the famous and the powerful, and threw parties that would have made The Great Gatsby envious. He was also a glutton, an egomaniac, a bully and a thief who looted his companies’ pension funds of hundreds of millions of pounds. When he died, in circumstances still mysterious, any reputation he’d built up during his life was worth less than a bucket of rags.

This book about his life is compulsively readable. John Preston’s prose is tight and lucid and each chapter ends with a suggestion of what’s going to happen next that practically forces you to keep turning the pages. And packed with anecdotes of mind-boggling behaviour as it is, it never once slips into tabloid sensationalism. It’s a vivid, fascinating read.

What it isn’t, I think, is an authoritative account of the man’s life. To give just two examples: There’s not a single mention of his well-known, long-running libel battles with Private Eye magazine. His successful turnaround of one company he bought is granted no more than a single sentence. We’re given no insight into how Maxwell turned its fortunes around.

This isn’t intended as criticism; merely observation. Because if Fall isn’t the final word on Robert Maxwell, there’s no denying the power with which this book brings him to life. When you turn the last page, you feel like you’ve actually met him. And not just observed him from a distance.