Henry Goodman on John Preston's story of disgraced tycoon Maxwell

Many of the speakers who contribute to  Clive Conway Productions’ talks pitch up on a virtually weekly basis as narrators, readers, commentators on podcasts, radio and TV programs.
The simple reason being they are extremely good at bringing a subject to life. One of the best is actor Henry Goodman who had us transfixed last week as he read John Preston’s  Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.
It’s a jaw-dropping biography of the notorious business tycoon and newspaper owner who built an empire, robbed its pension funds and finally disappeared mysteriously at sea just as the law appeared to be closing in on him.
In the book, Preston, the bestselling author of A Very English Scandal, describes how as a young man Maxwell escaped Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, was decorated after fighting bravely in the Second World War and went on to become a Labour MP and an astonishingly successful businessman.
He owned newspapers and publishing companies but he was a bully and a risk-taker and his reckless business dealings  and amoral attitude to life eventually took him from hero to zero. By the time of his death which may have been an accident, suicide or assassination, greed and corruption destroyed both his empire and his reputation. It is an astonishing story and a remarkable book. Goodman brought the words on the page to graphic life.