Four Kings

Starred review from September 1, 2008
Consider the state of boxing today. Not easy, is it? Its hard to name a prominent fighter. The audience that once gravitated to the sweet science has been diffused among an alphabet soup of competing organizations presenting overhyped, pay-per-view events. It wasnt always so. Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Thomas Hit Man Hearns were all household names in the 1980s, held multiple titles in or around the middleweight division, and fought among themselves nine times. Kimball, a columnist for the Boston Herald for 25 years, covered all nine of those epic confrontations among 400 other title bouts. He relies on his notes and recollections of the fights as well as fresh interviews with the fighters, their handlers, their managers, and others of note. His accounts of the fights are riveting blow-by-blows, the big event context is palpably rendered, and each of the fighters re-emerges from the mists of memory as colorful and compelling as ever. Boxing fans with a little gray in their hairparaphrasing Pete Hamills forewordwill savor Kimballs work. Younger fans? If they find their way to the book, maybe theyll understand the difference between greatness and hype.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)