The two authors of this book have over the years developed a type of book-making for themselves. The idea is to pick up some subject of recent history which is full of incident and drama, visit the site, read up as much as you can, interview such of the participants as are still around and then write a blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute account. There is a broad base of fact, though this is not very important; but certain events are highlighted, some personalities are exaggerated and the drama is converted into melodrama. There is some research but it is submerged in imaginary dialogue. Nothing is done to warn the unwary reader that the authors were not all the time behind the curtains or under the car-seats with their tape-recorders. The result is a kind of Cecil B. De Mille on paper. One has the feeling of reading a panoramic film script. Gripping but not true; vivid but unreal.
January 1976, volume 1, No 1