Fall

‘This is the best biography yet of the media magnate Robert Maxwell - by turns engrossing, amusing and appalling… it slips down as richly, easily and pleasurably as a tablespoonful of Beluga caviar’ – Robert Harris * Sunday Times *

‘Electrifying… the supreme chronicler of modern British scandals’

* Mail on Sunday *
‘This is such a richly detailed, well-written, gripping biography I wished it could have been twice as long’ – Lynn Barber * Daily Telegraph *
‘I have a shelf full of books about frauds, but this one is by far the most enjoyable. By turns self-righteous and revolting, Maxwell makes the perfect villain’ – Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
‘Any good biography of a mountebank depicts not only its subject but also the ambivalent society that accommodated the monster. John Preston’s Fall does this with deft understatement ... Preston’s A Very English Scandal used an almost novelistic eye to revive a well-worn scandal. Fall is equally satisfying’ – Quentin Letts * The Times *
‘An absorbing profile of the war hero turned rogue … Preston comes to his subject with the advantage both of hindsight and his great skill at exposing hypocrisy and subterfuge … he has an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the revealing quote’ * Observer, Book of the Week *
‘There have been many books written about Robert Maxwell, but surely none as pacy, entertaining and jaw-dropping as this one… yes, this is quite a book’ * Daily Mail *
‘Preston has written a wonderfully ­entertaining book and interviewed almost everyone who crossed ­Maxwell’s path in his heyday. He has an eye for comedy and drama and, where he explains his subject’s shady and dauntingly complex business dealings, he does so clearly and succinctly’ * New Statesman *
‘Irresistible page-turning pace … what emerges from Fall is a vividly grotesque picture of the emperor showing off his nonexistent new clothes to an applauding crowd of courtiers - politicians, editors, bankers - who all too willingly suspended any disbelief they may have felt’ – Francis Wheen * Spectator *
‘John Preston’s book Fall, a recounting of the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in British corporate life, is timely … almost 30 years since Maxwell died at sea in unexplained circumstances, it is possible to look back on his story and the fraud as a great, sweeping whole, a bridge from the second world war to the last years of the media barons before the internet began … Preston tells the story well … its strength is in telling the grand sweep of an extraordinary life’ * Financial Times *