The complexities in Stirling's character are certainly hinted at in this book but the author never really manages to tease them out; certainly not to the same extent that Eric Dymock did in his book on Jim Clark, for example. Nevertheless, while delving through the book you begin to feel that you are developing some sense of Moss's personality. Weird as it sounds, many biographies fail to do that, so on those grounds alone Edwards has earned himself a pat on the back.

Edwards also expresses a hope that the reader finds details within his pages that are new. This he does with a little more success. In fact, something new was revealed to me virtually every couple of pages, but then again I've never claimed to have had anything more than a healthy working knowledge of Stirling's career.

The Big One, though, comes toward the end of the book, when Edwards produces some previously unpublished evidence that may shed a whole new light on what really happened the day that Moss had his career-ending crash at Goodwood more than forty years ago. While there has been an almost Senna-esque degree of speculation regarding how exactly the accident happened in the years since, there are very few first-hand accounts. Graham Hill, whose car Moss was tailing just prior to the accident, is no longer with us; Moss himself has no memory of the incident (or indeed of much else that happened that day); and there were very few spectators at that part of the circuit.

It appears that at least one person did see it at close hand, and wrote of his impressions of the crash in a series of letters to Moss's father in the weeks following. For anyone still interested in getting to the bottom of what happened that April day, the correspondence makes for some very interesting reading.

There are also some interesting, unrelated, observances on various aspects of Moss's life from others. This one, featuring Masten Gregory talking about losing the 1957 Sports Car GP of Cuba after being passed by Moss under red flags, particularly appealed to me:

"I was upset, I'd been trying so hard for so many years to beat him. It wasn't an important race, but I wanted it and I went over to Stirling and told him I thought he was stealing it. He said: 'Don't be bloody silly, Gregory, you ought to read the rules, boy, the only place you can get a red flag is on the line. It doesn't count anywhere else.'

He was right, of course, you could always count on Stirling knowing the regs backward and forward, but I wouldn't hold still for it and said: 'I'm going to protest you.' Stirling said: 'Look, Masten, Castro will be in power in another month,' – he was always clued up on all that sort of thing – 'Battista will be out, Castro will be in; if you protest the money will be put in escrow and neither of us will ever see it.'

I told him I didn't give a damn, I was going to protest anyway. I said: 'Stirling, I've tried for too many years to beat you.' He said: 'All right Masten, it's $10,000 first place money and $7000 second, and we'll pool it and split it.' Some people said that was the only time anybody came out ahead in a money deal with Moss, but I never did beat him. Never in any of the races we ran together." (p. 225).

While there is a lot to like about this book (it's hard not to like a motor racing biography that begins in the 1400s), there are some flaws. While it's more than adequate for the average reader (if such a thing exists), hardcore historians might find the pickings just a little too slim. There are also lots of little hints pointing perhaps to a rushed finished – several typos have slipped through, which is disappointing for a book that places such high value upon presentation. There's also a number of photos here that you may have seen before, although they are augmented by a number that were not previously published, as well as copies of pages from Stirling's personal albums.

All up, this is a good book to read, and an even better one to just sit and look at. (It even provoked people to start talking to me on the train, although I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing). It's a fabulous starting point to later generation fans who wish to learn more about a giant of a driver from a truly great era of racing but don't know where to dive in, while those who were around to see Moss actually race should still be able to learn a thing or two that they didn't know previously.