Few books command days of banner headlines on publication.
But then few authors have been quite so intimately involved with current events as Richard Clarke, until last year one of President Bush's most important advisers on counterterrorism.
While Clarke's key charges - that George W Bush's White House underestimated the threat from al-Qaeda and pursued a counter-productive campaign against Saddam Hussein - are striking, this does not in itself guarantee a good read.
In fact, it's an almost suspiciously entertaining book, with thrillerish accounts of how events unfolded in the White House Situation Room on September 11, plenty of hardbitten dialogue, and easily digested history to keep the
pages turning.
The picture he paints of Bush's White House is grimly compelling. As well as the rivalrous and unwieldy counter-terrorism agencies - the FBI, CIA and so on - failing to co-ordinate their efforts, we also get a convincing account of the misdirected obsession with Iraq.
Clarke's account lacks the balance and nuance of scholarly history, but it makes up for this with real bite and immediacy.
Against All Enemies by Richard A Clarke is published in hardback by Free Press, priced £18.99.
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