This book suffers from the usual faults of contemporary works involving Göring. Hyperbolic description and endless fat jokes replace any attempt at analysis of his motivations and interests. This book is unusually snarky in tone, which soon becomes annoying.
There are so many legit things to despise about Göring that history would be better served to treat him seriously for the real damage he did to Europe.
Dolnick relies on multiple secondary sources I’ve already read instead of primary sources, and contributes little by rehashing others’ work.
Many errors of easily checked historical facts point to a lack of gravitas, as does an over reliance upon dodgy reminiscences from Göring’s enemies.
Along the same line, multiple extraneous and irrelevant narratives about other forgers are used to pad out this flimsy book. I’ve already read a book about Myatt and Drew and don’t need to read their story here. What does a hack like Myatt have to do with this book’s thesis anyway?
Overall, there is such a lack of focus that no coherent narrative emerges.
Narration is ok. Heitsch captures the annoying tone of the author very well.
Rarely have I been so disappointed in a book about art, my favorite subject.