PLAN OF ATTACK

After hundreds of hours of interviews with 75 key participants in the decision to go to war with Iraq, Bob Woodward distilled their narratives to provide a comprehensive account of that process. Boyd Gaines offers a clear rendition of the narrative, with minimal character vocalization, and no hint of the tension and emotion of the interviews or their subjects. A choppy abridgment removes much coherence from the text, and possibly adds the political bias of the editor to Woodward's accurate and objective account. In a book dealing with such highly charged content, the quality, coherence, and objectivity of the abridgment take on an importance far greater than they would in fiction. R.P.L. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 04]