An entertaining memoir.

In his telling, Mr. Whitfield takes such great pains to present himself as a complete innocent that it stretches credulity.

Gives a momentous relationship its due, with unusual directness.

In this tale of greed, excess and lies so slippery you feel as if you’re skating on the surface of a weirdly mirrored reality, the extravagant names are just the tip of an almost unbelievable iceberg.

Exhilarating.

A highly readable and perceptive account of how contemporary art is bought and sold.

Whitfield’s careful explanation of how it happened, with details gleaned from the numerous documents Philbrick sends him from Vanuatu, is incredibly stressful to read. But it does also raise some fascinating questions about how such activity is positively nurtured by the world in which Philbrick was operating.

The glorious mystery of the artistic process is not the main focus and the tabloid-style art world revelations have been made so many times they’re as scintillating as flat champagne.