My book reviews

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.Atlantic/Allen and Unwin, 276pp, $38.99.
At first blush, Nicholas Carr's cleverly written, compellingly argued book about the way the internet is reshaping the human mind - he is convinced for worse - might seem just another in the long list of such titles designed to cash in on people's unease with the waves of change crashing all around us these days.
And after speeding through its 270-odd pages (it really is, despite the density of some of its subject matter, a straightforward and even easy read), the feeling still lingers: that Carr, for all his personal brilliance, his deep research and mastery of his arguments, has issued what amounts to a jeremiad, a lament for the supposed passing of a superior age. (See his website, nicholasgcarr.com, to learn more of his pedigree and opinions.)
The essence of The Shallows is Carr's contention that the nature of life on the net - a world of instant gratification, of ducking in and out of websites, jumping around links, assessing content in the blink of an eye, devoting mere seconds to capturing the essence of an article - is rewiring our brains, quite literally, particularly as many people's existence depends on net access for some approximation of fulfilment.
Carr devotes many pages to stepping readers through the science and theory of "neuroplasticity" (the brain's ability to develop and redesign itself in response to new tasks), of memory, concentration, comprehension and the like; he fears that as more of us live our lives online, so we will lose not only the will but the way for the sort of deep, reflective thinking that has shaped humanity's development for most of civilisation's history; even for reading books or, heaven forbid, long newspaper articles.
It is heavy stuff, in other words, despite its reasonably light delivery and could be depressing too; it is also a contentious field and Carr's theories are disputed in the circles that concern themselves with these matters, particularly by scientists and others who point to the new nimbleness the net-fused brain can demonstrate.
A more prosaic concern might be that Carr does not adequately explore the view that many people are instinctively alive to the perils he is concerned about, and adapt technology to their lives accordingly - refusing to be enslaved by it, as Carr comes close to suggesting is the case.
Beyond any such theorising, however, lies a highly recommended read, even if only as an introduction to one of the more profound implications of the technological age.
Just be prepared to find in The Shallows a polemic, when those who may share Carr's alarm might have preferred a manifesto.
 Nelson Mail, September 11, 2010.




Gods and Little Fishes, by Bruce Ansley, Longacre, 248 pages, $39.99. Reviewed by Geoff Collett.
--------------------
I'M A long-time admirer of Bruce Ansley's journalism from when he worked for the Listener and I'm a sucker for good yarns about my oft-maligned hometown of Christchurch. Other reports about Gods and Little Fishes were enthusiastic and my hopes were high. So it bothers me that I finished it feeling unsatisfied.
Maybe, as a member of the post-Baby Boom Generation X, I'm outside Ansley's target market. Maybe it's just that my Christchurch prejudices, which have always cast New Brighton as tatty, cold, rough and about as appealing as offal, are too deep-seated to be broken by even the most determined booster.
But there are a couple of broader problems.
Ansley is, without question, a clever writer, one of the most capable journalists of his day, but the occasionally folksy tone and the whiff of sentimentality hobble proceedings here.
The humour would be best described as gentle, much of it based on embarrassing adolescent rites of passage in a vaguely gritty place. It's been done before, in other words.
As a memoir it works well, and I know much more about Ansley than before I started, which is nice, I guess. I think he must be a good bloke.
But I don't care any more for New Brighton and will maintain my studied indifference towards it.
The few times I go there these days, it strikes me as nothing other than forlorn, permanently haunted by ancient memories of when it was a Saturday shopping mecca.
Ansley tells his story with skill and care - no question of that.
His feelings for Brighton are deep-seated and lasting. Personally speaking, though, to really get it, I guess you had to be there. Nelson Mail, December 23, 2009.


Nelson Mail columnist Karl du Fresne - a well-regarded Wairarapa-based journalist with family ties to this region - has developed a solid reputation as a food and wine writer over the years and has now added his contribution to the vast assortment of wine guide books (a genre which has grown almost as quickly as sauvignon blanc plantings in Marlborough). His New Zealand Wine-Lover's Companion ($29.99, published by Craig Potton Publishing, to complete the Nelson connections) is an A-Z reference book, best suited to newcomers to the sometimes intimidating, often confusing world of wine. It is a variation on a well- worn theme, but its strong New Zealand flavour and du Fresne's trademark droll and plain-speaking style give it sufficient points of difference to warrant and reward closer inspection. The occasional eclectic moments among the hundreds of alphabeticised topics briefly explained add extra personality. Nelson Mail, November 18, 2009.


Richard Till Makes It Easy By Richard Till, Renaissance Publishing, 159 pages, $34.99
Full English By Tom Parker Bowles, Random House, 310 pages, $37.99 -------------------- HOW far can Richard Till take his Kiwi Kitchen gig - giving a new lease on life to all those uncool '70s recipes for food as real people supposedly eat it, things like shrimp cocktail and various ways of preparing pork with pineapple? Clearly, he sees at least another cookbook in it, and here it is - a primer to cooking like Till does at home.
As is Till's way, there is rather more going on here than meets the eye, as he applies his classical kitchen skills and his restaurateur's smarts to achieving classic comfort food with deceptive ease.
There is a lot of hype around the back-to- roots approach, but in Till's case you can safely assume that he lives and breathes this stuff. In truth, he almost overdoes the downhome thing - the production values are deliberately hokey, with an awkward, faux- typewritten font and an assiduous lack of food styling in the photos (including tins of Budget brand tomatoes where the usual careful product placement should be).
It doesn't entirely work. Still, if the text isn't always easy to read and the photos are a bit muddy, the recipes are mostly so straightforward that it would be hard to go wrong, and there's no room for doubting the determination of Till's anti- pretentiousness.
Don't make the mistake of dismissing this as a beginner's book either. Till is a fine cook as well as a Mr Nice Guy, and offers numerous tips and variations on even the most basic recipes, which any self-taught cook could learn from. But perhaps don't go into Makes It Easy expecting to want to whip up every single dish.
Personally speaking, I suffered rather a bad flashback when I discovered he had exhumed what looks suspiciously like my mother's old recipe for a smoked fish bake in white sauce. Not everything retro deserves a revival, Richard.
It's the hoariest of themes - what is English cuisine, really? - but for all the labradorish enthusiasm with which he takes to his self-imposed challenge to find out, toff food writer Tom Parker Bowles doesn't really further the sum total of human knowledge over the course of 300 pages.
He bases his approach around travelling to the reputed finest producers of various mainstays of English grub - cider and cheddar from Somerset, tripe from Dewsbury, chicken tikka masala from Birmingham, lamb from Kent etc.
Part essay, part reportage, part puffery, something here grates slightly - perhaps the narrative, which comes across like a script for a TV show or something. Or perhaps it's the inescapable conclusion that once an aristocrat, always an aristocrat.
Pardon my cynicism, but when he starts pulling out the recipes for things like mutton pie, brawn, pigeons in cider or eel pie, he comes across like an Old Etonian trying to get in touch with his inner yokel, and despite his cross-country meanderings, nothing seems terribly original here.
The homesick Brit or the most irredeemable Anglophile could well find a bit of charm within Full English - the book is not dreadful, just vaguely annoying and blithe in its rosy tint. A far more enjoyable take on this sort of thing is Nigel Slater's Eating for England, but if you really are homesick or irredeemable, Tom will do you no harm.
 Nelson Mail, November 10, 2009.

Sheep With Boots By Maritgen Matter and Jan Jutte 40 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Geoff Collett. SHEEP is a bit of a dimwit, but warm-hearted and longing for a friend.
Wolf is a scheming, thwarted sort who at first eyes Sheep as the answer to his hunger problem on a frozen winter's night, but whose determination to score a tasty feed is no match for Sheep's guilelessness.
The story of their adventure together, Sheep With Boots, is another little magic spell delivered by the folks at Gecko Press.
It's a gently amusing tale, best read aloud so adults as well as children can enjoy its offbeat, even sophisticated take on an old allegory. Be sure to take some time to examine the pictures - mildly anarchic but with a peculiar charm of their own.
Sheep With Boots, translated from its original Dutch, is handsomely presented as a small, linen-bound hardback volume, of a quality that should teach today's young digital natives that there's nothing in the online world to beat the experience of owning and handling a good- quality book.
 Nelson Mail, November 4, 2009.


The Spiders of Allah, by James Hider. Doubleday/Random House, 324 pages, $37.99. Gomorrah - Italy's Other Mafia, by Roberto Saviano. Pan/Macmillan, 301 pages, $27.99.--------------------
It's not often that journalists can work themselves and their opinions deep into their own reportage and get away with it. Mostly, it ends up as mere polemic, or dull, who-cares rambling. But sometimes, the reach and courage of their approach allows them to get away with more pontificating than should be bearable.
So it is with James Hider's reports from the heart of the holy wars in the Middle East and Roberto Saviano's hair- raising recitations of the numerous sins of the Neapolitan mafia.
Mostly, Hider's book is a straightforward foreign correspondent's observations from Iraq around the time that the insurrection against the American invasion started ripping the country into little pieces. It's a largely excellent read, darkly amusing, cynical in the way only the justifiably jaded can manage, gripping and depressing by equal measure, principally for its insight into the culture and people buried beneath Iraq's miseries. Hider is The Times' Middle East bureau chief, so his reportage is up there with the best - his recounting of the ill-fated 2004 Shia pilgrimage to the holy city of Kabala is superb. The Spiders of Allah (named, incidentally, for an internet hoax about giant desert spiders, which the insurgents seized on as a sign from their god) is marred, however, by Hider treating it as some kind of personal thesis about the foolishness of religion. While he plays the main reportage part of the story more or less straight, it is book-ended by his theories on the failings of god-bothering, in which he only proves the point that the endless atheism vs religion carry-on is inherently dull, no matter whose hands it is in. Best leave it to the letter-to-the-editor writing bores, where it can be safely ignored.
Gomorrah is not a new book - it was first published a couple of years ago, but has been reissued in paperback following a movie adaptation and some continued media publicity about the Naples mafia's (the Camorra's) intention to whack author Saviano as soon as it gets the chance, for revealing so much about its vile affairs. Saviano now lives under constant police protection but, as one of the central morals of his story goes, the threat of a horrible death is better than being cowed into silence as so many have been. Gomorrah is a truly harrowing book, with matter-of-fact gore and sickening violence on most pages, but more significantly for the unbelievable influence it reveals the Camorra to hold far beyond southern Italy. Maybe even into our own quiet little lives.
Unfortunately, Saviano's astonishing, frightening, eye-popping stories and his own bravery are not well served in the translation from the original Italian. The story-telling is weirdly laboured or overcooked - tortured metaphor and lengthy doses of cod philosophy are an irritating distraction, unworthy of Saviano's broader achievements in prying into a lethal secret society, a world he grew up in and developed a loathing for beyond all concern for his own welfare.
Then again, it seems churlish to complain about the chore of wading through unnecessary verbiage (and the inevitable difficulties of keeping up with an endless cast of Italian characters, most of them destined for a sticky end), when Saviano's achievements and personal sacrifice are considered. Indeed, it seems the very least one can do as some kind of gesture of solidarity in the face of unspeakable evil. Nelson Mail, March 25, 2009.


The Man Who Owns the News, by Michael Wolff. Random House, hardback, 446pp, $55. Reviewed by Geoff Collett. -------------------- "The point about Murdoch is that you can hate him as much as you want, as long as you take him seriously - as long as you see him as a threat, a power to be reckoned with, a significant personage."
That's Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch - the crustiest, most loathed, destructive, crass, insensitive, boorish (the list of pejoratives can go on as long as you care) of all the newspaper barons who have ever been, or so his admirers say.
Wolff is not exactly an admirer, but he is no assassin either. He is a highly accomplished journalist of the American magazine variety, and he has written a significant biography on Murdoch, which doubles as a captivating if peculiarly American tale about an all-powerful businessman doing business his way.
Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch - the sub-title seems to be something of a nod to those tabloid teasers - is structured around Murdoch's ultimately successful bid for the family- controlled Dow Jones empire, crowned by the Wall Street Journal.
As far as that deal goes - not Murdoch's most significant nor most difficult, but one which allowed him to gatecrash yet another previously walled enclave of American society - it's a fairly typical story of the barbarian battering at the gate. The gate in this instance belonged to the Bancroft family, who Wolff portrays as the classic ludicrous, disconnected, riven and confused society clan, appalled but entirely at sea when confronted with Murdoch's offer they can't refuse.
As intriguing, and even suspenseful, as Wolff seeks to portray the Wall Street Journal takeover, it is ultimately a secondary plot to the central storyline, which is that of the Murdoch we do and don't know - whether the breathtakingly emotionless, calculating, obsessive, corporate white pointer; or the fuddery old geezer who dyes his own hair, badly, because he deludes himself that others must not catch on to his septuagenarian's vanities.
Wolff's is a long way from the previous significant Murdoch biography, William Shawcross's 1992 effort, which is widely derided as too sympathetic to its subject, and is wooden in comparison. Murdoch, for reasons uncertain, decided to give Wolff extensive access to himself and his family. If there was some expectation that Wolff was going to do a patsy job (and Murdoch, as disconnected as he may be from aspects of reality, is surely not that sort of fool), it was a vain one.
Having said that, Wolff doesn't obviously dislike his man and although he reveals that there is plenty of substance to the Murdochian stereotypes, his man lies some way short of the Mephistophelean figure many - most - would have him. Murdoch's mother and children, too, talked with varying degrees of enthusiasm and an important part of the book is Wolff's attempts to unravel the dynastic elements of the Murdoch family, the difficult relationships between Murdoch and children, Murdoch and mother, Murdoch and former wives, Murdoch and siblings, and the complexities tossed into all of that by his third marriage, to Wendi Deng.
Shortcomings? Those who regard the devil as Murdoch in disguise may be outraged at Wolff's humanising tendencies. Those who wince at American journalism's good-golly approach may be occasionally pained.
The narrative becomes needlessly windy in places; Wolff's journalistic credentials shouldn't be doubted, but perhaps they shouldn't be given completely free rein either.
Any number of aspects of Murdoch lore could be said to have been glossed over or dealt with cursorily, if at all, but word limits are like that.
But when it comes to getting close to a man who is famously impenetrable, it seems no-one will get to succeed as Wolff has and go on to tell the tale. That alone makes it worth the admission price. Nelson Mail, January 14, 2009.


2008 Time hasn't just flown by for sauvignon blanc in Marlborough. The doyen of New Zealand wine writers, Michael Cooper, has just produced the new, 2009 edition of his ever-excellent Buyer's Guide to New Zealand Wines (Hachette Livre, $34.99) - 18 years since the first edition. There's not much that needs to be said by way of review: uniformly excellent, ever reliable, scrupulously compiled, and bigger than ever with what appears to be about 8 million listings. Cooper remains the Kiwi wine drinker's best friend, and his prose remains curiously enthralling - proved, perhaps, by the typical experience of how browsing even a few of his entries leads to an unstoppable urge to open a bottle. And stop press: the Buyer's Guide jacket photo reveals Cooper has shaved off his trademark 'tache. More reason, surely, to pour a drink and ponder this unsettled world we live in. Nelson Mail, December 9, 2008.


Nigella Christmas, by Nigella Lawson. Chatto Windus, 277 pages, $79.99. Nigella looking sultry. Nigella looking saucy. Nigella looking coquettish. Yes, Ms One and Only's back with another of her somewhat outlandish cookbooks, full of artery-hardening recipes and photos of the Luscious One wearing an assortment of winsome expressions and tight-fitting tops.
While that latter observation will no doubt trigger a stampede of menfolk to the cookery section at Whitcoulls for some feverish browsing, some of us (well, a few of us) may be more concerned about the recipes. They're standard Nigella fare, thrown together with gay disregard for either household budgets or nutritional wisdom, but offering temptations of their own and always delivered with her inimitable charm.
The drawbacks, as with all her cookbooks, are the particularly English bent - there's always been a hint of boarding school-plus to a proportion of her creations, which isn't necessarily appetising to Antipodean palates - and their general absence from the world occupied by most home cooks.
But there is plenty to like. I tried out a few - a tiramisu cake (much like tiramisu any old how - messy, delicious and vascular disease guaranteed); a pumpkin and multi- cheese lasagne (don't ask me what it has to do with Christmas, but it was rich, tasty and extremely cheesy, and my health insurance has no doubt just been voided); and a small Christmas cake, scaled down for our little household's modest cake-eating abilities (too early to report on, but early signs are promising).
I'll never use her recipe for roasting a goose, I suspect, nor her chestnut soup, nor quite a bit else besides. But there are already a couple of new standbys to add to the repertoire - a good sign with any new cookbook these days - and I will be happily looking at the pictures for a long time to come.
 Nelson Mail, November 25, 2008.

Wine Atlas of New Zealand, by Michael Cooper with photography by John McDermott. Hodder Moa, 408 pages, $125. Reviewed by Geoff Collett.
Once every few years for the past 20 years, the most significant new release from the New Zealand wine industry hasn't come in a bottle. Instead, it has arrived handsomely bound, lavishly illustrated and expertly penned - the latest version of Auckland wine writer Michael Cooper's ever-more impressive dissertations on wine growing and making in this country.
In recent times, it has been labelled and packaged as a wine atlas, drawing obvious inspiration from Hugh Johnson's formidable World Atlas of Wine and, perhaps even more closely, an Australian version by James Halliday. But while this release is labelled "second edition" its pedigree is much longer and the "atlas" name could be misleading to the uninitiated.
But its origins lie back in the late 1980s, in the first edition of Cooper's The Wines and Vineyards of New Zealand - a grand book in its day, the clearest signal on its release of the industry's rapid coming-of-age in this country, and lifted beyond the merely excellent by the sublime photography of the late Robin Morrison.
Now as then, Cooper offers the obligatory potted history of the industry, some explanations of the grape growing and winemaking business, and then a region-by-region tour with maps, charts, geographical data, some overview commentary and short essays on all of the significant local wineries (with much shorter references to the also-rans).
While in comparison to Wines and Vineyards the new book is so much larger and more sophisticated - reflecting the industry it reports on - it is essentially a difference of scale rather than style.
Cooper has always written about wine with an unrivalled level of authority and detachment. The wine industry has traditionally enjoyed the easiest ride and lightest scrutiny from the media. Cooper is one of the few with the willingness and temperament to assess it steadily and fairly, leaving no doubt that he has the consumer's interests uppermost. But he is far from carping; in this atlas, as in his many other writings, the industry is judged on its merits and emerges in an overwhelmingly positive light.
As for the merits of Cooper's own magnum opus: the writing tends to the prosaic, although that could be taken as a compliment in a game which typically teeters under the weight of adjectival overload. Besides, Cooper can whip up a reader's thirst for a recommended glass as expertly as any.
Inevitably, there is repetition between editions, some echoing all the way back to the first version of Wines and Vineyards. There is a sameness to the winery profiles - a formula is at work here, although that too is inevitable. The cost is high for a book that will be out-of-date in a few years, and the price tag risks strengthening the sense of elitism which always wafts around wine.
But it is what it is, and that is a superb book. One point that deserves to be made regards John McDermott's photography. Robin Morrison was without peer and his work truly lifted Wines and Vineyards; after Morrison's death, McDermott's work with Cooper seemed vaguely pedestrian in comparison. Not any more. If it lacks the quirkiness and individuality of Morrison, its numerous other qualities are more than befitting of such a fine book.
 (Published Nelson Mail, september 30, 2008)

It is hard to believe that there could be a more beautifully under-stated and poignant book about the endgame that stalks us all than Duck, Death and The Tulip, by Wolf Erlbruch (Gecko Press, 32 pages, $18.99 paperback, $29.99 hardback). The format suggests a children's book, but the short tale of a charmingly guileless Duck befriending Death when he creeps up behind her feels ancient in its wisdom. Erlbruch's artwork, combining drawing and collage, is mesmerising, applied with great subtlety and care to convey precisely the pathos, futility but also the unwitting affection of Duck's innocent dance with Death.
So too the narrative - translated from its original German into English by Catherine Chidgey - is hauntingly spare and precise. Anybody who cares for the fragility of the spirit will be captivated, and moved. (Published Nelson Mail, August 13, 2008.)

The Bolger Years, edited by Margaret Clark (Dunmore Publishing, $37.95): Rather like the Bolger years themselves, Dunmore Publishing's book of that name is a bit rough in parts, not always fun, often forgettable, but with moments of undeniable significance. Above all, you know it's supposed to be good for you even if it doesn't seem so at the time.
Based on presentations to a political studies conference organised in Wellington, also called The Bolger Years, the book compiles the observations and judgments of the legacy of Jim Bolger's prime ministership from a variety of pundits - mostly members of Bolger's own cabinet, but including a smattering of commentators and interested others.
For the target audience of scholars of politics, it should be useful in starting to provide some shape around the undeniable impact - good and not-so-good - of 1990-97. Political geeks generally may be interested, but the book is not terrifically reader-friendly. In places, editing seems non-existent, the content is too repetitive, and at best it whets the appetite for a genuinely hard-headed, in- depth narrative of the years that shaped much about the New Zealand of today. (Published Nelson Mail, August 13, 2008.)


Going As Far As I Can, by Duncan Fallowell. Profile Books through Allen and Unwin. $35. Reviewed by Geoff Collett. -------------------- Some silly piffle was written about this book before it went on sale - blatherings about the dreadful things some ghastly, foppish Brit was going to say about us. No doubt it served to heighten anticipation among those who love nothing more than a bit of masochistic up-tightness about our collective foibles being (once again) pointed out to all and sundry, but in fact such pre-publicity was woefully shy of the mark.
Fallowell may come across as a louche sort of character, but only in the most likeable way, and those seeking to be outraged by sweeping judgments about Kiwis' appalling dress-sense/social gaucheness/big noses will be disappointed. Only perhaps Maori men with a heightened sense of insecurity will find something to truly blush over here. Oh, and various of the individuals the magnificently indiscreet Fallowell met in his travels and gleefully recounts the unguarded observations of (or, in a few cases, his own unguarded observations of).
There is sauce for the gander, though - Fallowell is brutally and charmingly honest about all that he encounters, including his own indiscretions, which accumulate at an alarming pace. In fact, the irony of the pre-publicity is that mostly, he seems to quite like us and our surrounds, even if with qualification and reservation.
Anyway, his judgments matter not a jot, really - the real question is, can he tell a good travel story, and the answer is, yes he can, mostly. He may not be Theroux or Thubron, there may be a few too many moments of rambling, distracting self-indulgence, but he must still be considered one of the coolest in the business if only for his finely honed insouciance and faded hipness.
Going As Far As I Can has a variety of supposed themes, most of them centred around Fallowell's search for various what-have-yous in these remote isles - the theatres which Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh performed in during their 1950s tour, a good rose wine, lost history, some casual sex, an experience of Shangri-La at the end of the world. He encounters it all, more or less, albeit with varying degrees of satisfaction, but really, these threads are ostensible stuff. New Zealand is a convenient canvas for Fallowell to splash around on, to indulge himself, test-drive a few notions, poke some fun and rejoice in unexpected discoveries in strange places. We should go along for the ride. (Published Nelson Mail, March 15, 2008.)

The blurb on the back cover of Rosie Belton's recently published Just a Bang on the Head (Craig Potton Publishing, $24.99) says it is essential for anyone dealing with a brain injury, their friends, family and associated professionals. It would be a shame if the audience was so confined, though, for Belton's story of how a fall and initially undiagnosed head injury turned her life upside down is a painful, absorbing read about the ease with which a happy and successful life can be so cruelly and judderingly up-ended. Belton, an accomplished and prominent member of Christchurch's theatre community with close family ties to Nelson, writes with enormous bravery and frankness - as do her nearest and dearest in their contributed cameos - and it is that which makes her book much more than just another addition to the groaning shelves of disease-of-the- week writing. It is mostly a sad, scary story, one that succeeds entirely for its humanity and honesty. (Published Nelson Mail, June 25, 2008.)

McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers, by Misha Glenny. Random House. 426pp. $39.99. Reviewed by Geoff Collett. --------------------
If you think the unacceptable face of globalisation is the all-powerful, avaricious multinational - or, for that matter, the wild-eyed anarchist who uses the excuse of global capital to run riot - read McMafia, and think again.
Misha Glenny's masterful dissection of the international crime industry, with its tentacles deep in every corner of society, is the ultimate tale of how the dark side of human nature responded to the bright new opportunities of the new world order.
This is crime, but not as we traditionally think of it.
It is crime as entrepreneurialism, as private army, as political opportunity, and most of all as global empire which has thrived as capitalist society has hurried to dismantle the barriers to the free flow of people, goods and cash.
It is crime as the rancid oil that not only lubricates so many of modern society's proclivities, but seeps into and stains all corners of the cosy consumerist lifestyle. Foremost, it is crime as the post-apocalypse cockroach - the first thing to emerge from the rubble and busy itself with infesting all it can following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the Balkan wars, the teetering post- apartheid South Africa.
It can be terrifying - the stories of the militias, guerillas, goons and animals who teem in the South American cocaine wastelands are as harrowing as Glenny's accounts of officialdom's impotence against them are depressing.
But it is also a compelling, powerful tale - Glenny is an accomplished journalist, among other things, so has no trouble whipping up and sticking to a well-paced, easily followed narrative.
But far more importantly, he is an extraordinarily brave soul, one who has delved into the dodgiest nooks of human endeavour to report back, whether from the hell- holes of cocaine-cartel Colombia or the murderous, conscienceless free-for-all of the Russian mafia.
From the very first page, we learn - with a jolt in the gut - just how vile the world's shadow-players really are.
We learn of men (women are only victims here; what, you may ask, is that all about?) of wealth and power to match anything in the "legitimate" world, and whose corruptive, corrosive reach is forever startling to behold.
But importantly, Glenny finds glimmers in the darkness - even if only the occasional heroic, incorruptible good guy cop, the small victories against the dark side, the stories of those who have squeezed free from the vice.
He is a droll character, too - after an experience of researching a book like this, not to mention his previous magnum opus on the disintegration of Yugoslavia, he surely has no choice - and leavens the gloom with sufficient humour and compassion to avoid total despair.
McMafia is a superb piece of journalism. Anybody who cares about the forces shaping our world and lives would be well advised to take the plunge, however unsettling it may be.
Geoff Collett is the Nelson Mail's features editor. (Published Nelson Mail, July 2, 2008.)