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Roger Pielke, Jr. now has a book review out of Wheelmen by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell.
Excerpt: Much has already been written about the fall of Lance Armstrong. More books, movies and television specials will no doubt follow. But whether you are a cycling enthusiast or just curious, an outstanding place to start is Wheelmen by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell, both reporters with the Wall Street Journal.
Wheelmen tries hard not to be a “book just about Lance Armstrong,” but instead to paint a “picture of a multi-national conspiracy that yielded its many participants hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a twenty-four year sweep of time.” The book only partially succeeds in keeping that broader focus, partly because Armstrong is such a compellingly awful person. Were he invented as a fictional character in a novel, the depth of his callousness, greed and megalomania would be probably dismissed as unrealistic.
The authors also seek to tell a “complete, objective, and nuanced story.” Here they mostly succeed, especially with respect to the latter two aims, but they leave several loose ends (described below) that may or may not be resolved in further investigations or legal proceedings. Wheelmen is very well written and researched, and clearly the product of years of investigative reporting which allowed the rapid production of such a high quality book.
The arc of the story is well known. Lance Armstrong emerged as a young professional cyclist in the 1990s with some promise, but who had been held back by a bad temperament. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer which spread throughout his body. After beating the odds and being declared cancer-free, Armstrong returned to cycling in a triumphant manner, ultimately winning the Tour de France seven times in a row while founding the Livestrong cancer charity. Read more …
