I agree with the advertising on the book
4 stars
It really is "gripping, cleanly written, cannily plotted, and elegantly educational...brims with great tales". I must agree. I would like to add, that it has a cast of B-Movie figures: A pedophile pediatrician, an egoistic power-hungry scientist, a selucted Italian noble family, an slowly and incompetent bureaucracy. You could not make this stuff up. The book is nearly twenty years old, but is still not outdated, except for the speculations in the end.
