The chapter on Murdoch, At the Court of the Sun King, is the mostinteresting in the bookand will prove valuable reading for Indian mediapersons (R.Basu, for one), since he now hovers over our territory, scanning the possibilities,testing the chinks in the legalistic armour. Neil psychoanalyses Murdoch, with interestinganecdotes, to find that the worlds most powerful media baron is a largely privateperson but possessed of a matchless ambition and ruthlessness, with the shrewdest mind inthe game. Perpetually restless, perpetually competitive, obsessed with the art of thedeal, the only two things that interest him are politics and businessand the firstbecause it impinges on the latter. For example, he makes no friends, since it can come inthe way of business. But Neil also found him to be someone he could count on in a tightspot. When Harrods threatened to withdraw their huge advertising contract fromSunday Times over an unfriendly story, Murdoch backed Neil and told them to get lost; andwhen Robert Maxwell overstepped the bounds in lobbying Murdoch to stop publication ofdamning extracts, Murdoch bawled him out, and let Neil go ahead.