Clint Eastwood: Billion Dollar Man

The fact that Thompson opens the book with a favorable quote from Eastwood about himself (""Dougie Thompson's one of the good guys,"" Eastwood says of his biographer) is a good indicator that this will not be an impartial biography. Thompson, author of more than 20 books of the gushing celebrity bio variety (Fever!: The Biography of John Travolta, Uncaged: The Biography of Nicolas Cage and Madonna: Queen of the World) riddles the book with nonsensical interludes and seemingly endless quotations. Thompson's faults overwhelm the book, but most frustrating of all is his inability to edit quotes and sum up stories; an interview with longtime love interest and costar Sandra Locke, for example, runs for a staggering 13 pages without a single interruption from Thompson. The conversations have been edited, but there are no transitions between topics, making Locke and others look as if they're speaking about random topics as they occur to them. Thompson does manage to impart some insight into Eastwood's work ethic; passages about Eastwood's directorial style, which keeps his movies on budget, and his loyalty to his coworkers, some of whom have been with him for over forty years, are the book's highlights. But they're not enough to rescue it from the depths of mediocrity.