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Rendell combines a beautiful narration of Grand Tour cycling that brings the low-resolution 90s TV images of climbers up the misty slopes of the Giro and Le Tour in front of you from the pages, with an unapologetically responsible evaluation of the ugly parts of the story: the doping, Marco's self-destruction, and the complicity of those around him to his demise. I was very glad to see that clear-eyed but sensitive treatment of the myths and excuses built around him over the years - a norm particularly present with sports celebrities in Italy. It's exactly the author's refusal to engage with those myths and excuses, and instead his decision to direct the gaze at the facts of how Marco both failed himself, and was failed by lots of individuals around him, that makes it a valuable reading. I found this much more compelling than the documentary, which skipped many of the crucial relationships and personalities that aided his spiral of dismantling his own life and persona. From the triumphs of his agony-sprinkled climbing of the greatest cols, to the repeat cycles of his regressing relationships, to the final disintegration in his room in that hotel in Rimini, this was both a beautiful and painful read.