Costa Prize Winner: The “best biography yet” of notorious media mogul Robert Maxwell, “by turns engrossing, amusing, and appalling” (Sunday Times).

In February 1991, Robert Maxwell triumphantly sailed into New York Harbor on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, to buy the ailing Daily News. Taxi drivers stopped their cabs to shake his hand, children asked for his autograph, and patrons of the hottest restaurant in Manhattan gave him a standing ovation while he dined. Ten months later, Maxwell disappeared off that same yacht in the middle of the night and was later found dead in the water. As John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal, reveals in this biography, Maxwell’s death was as mysterious as his remarkable life.

A tightly paced, addictive saga of ambition, hubris, narcissism, greed, power, and intrigue, this book recounts Maxwell’s rise and fall and rise and fall again. Preston moves backward and forward in time to examine the forces that shaped Maxwell, from his Jewish childhood in occupied Eastern Europe to his failed political ambitions in the 1960s that ended in accusations of financial double-dealing to his resurrection as a media mogul—and the family legacy he left behind, including his daughter Ghislaine Maxwell.

Preston chronicles Maxwell’s all-encompassing rivalry with Rupert Murdoch—a battle that ruined Maxwell financially, threatened his sanity, and led, indirectly, to his death. Did Maxwell have a heart attack and fall overboard? Was his death suicide? Or was he murdered—possibly by Mossad or the KGB? Few in the twentieth century journeyed as far from his roots as Robert Maxwell. Yet, as Fall reveals, no one, however rich and powerful, can entirely escape their past.

“Preston tells [the story] with great verve and the benefit of extensive interviews.” —The Economist

“The mystery of this larger-than-life figure is perplexing—true crime aficionados will be absorbed.” —Library Journal

“One of the most enigmatic figures in the annals of white-collar crime . . . well-researched, compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews

© 2021 Harper (Audiobook): 9780062997524
© 2024 Harper (Ebook): 9780062997517

Release date

Audiobook: 9 February 2021
Ebook: 19 March 2024