Monitor | Bo Xilai story reads like a violent mafia blood feud
Two new books give great insight into the way senior Chinese officials do business and politics in the dynastic corridors of power on the mainland
Sex (probably), spies (possibly), fast cars (allegedly), power politics (undoubtedly) and a grisly murder (no question); the Bo Xilai case had it all.
So it's hardly surprising that journalists who covered the story for the international media have been rushing to publish books on the affair.
By the end of last year both Jamil Anderlini, Beijing bureau chief for the Financial Times , and John Garnaut, China correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, had managed to get accounts into print.
Their books make fascinating reading, not so much for their descriptions of the murder of unfortunate British business man Neil Heywood, which has been well hashed over in the media, but for what they reveal about how senior Chinese officials conduct their business and political affairs.
Inevitably the two books cover much of the same ground. But whereas Anderlini's The Bo Xilai Scandal: Power, Death and Politics in China begins with the poisoning of Heywood - a slightly sad Walter Mitty-like figure - in a shabby Chongqing hotel room, Garnaut accords Heywood only a walk-on part.