Thoroughly researched, well ordered, factual biography like Doherty’s Corner appeals to me. If, as is usual with a life-history, there is occasion for reading between the lines, I’m left alone to do it unhampered by authorial speculation. It often happens that when subjects of biographies live into the era of the writer of the book, facts emerge during research that might offend the feelings or sensibilities of still-living people. Burke has excluded anything of this order. In other words the book is very interesting and a model of usefulness and good taste.

I say “usefulness” deliberately because Colleen Burke’s background framework includes valuable social and political history that, as her source notes and acknowledgements show, is not easily accessible to any ‘ordinary reader’. And how well those notes are arranged: good design enhances the whole book.