"This lively, well-researched portrait of a doomed Hollywood marriage is packed with behind-the-scenes anecdotes (e.g., Jones flees the set of Since You Went Away after a love scene with estranged husband Walker). Linet, a veteran film writer, bases her characterizations of the principals in this ill-fated love triangle on recent interviews with Walker's close friends and relatives. There is nothing new on Jones, who did not cooperate with the author; she is depicted as an ambitious schemer. Walker's mental problems, according to Linet, stemmed from lifelong neglect of his emotional needs. Selznick, Jones's Svengali, flounders in middle age, his creativity corrupted by power and passion."