After completing my reading of this thrilling, well-researched book, color me shocked to see all these one-star reviews. That's unfair. Amongst that voting constituency are: ticked-off Kindle readers (no E-version yet); people who've not read the book out of principle (but take a slam here anyway for good measure); and those stating "there's nothing new here."

I won't take on the first two constituencies, but will the latter. To the contrary, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's technique of getting everyone to talk off the record has resulted in a brazen, no-holds-barred look behind the scenes at the endlessly fascinating 2008 campaigns. Despite what you read in some of these reviews, you've NOT read it all before. In fact, the one one-star review I side with is the one that makes the entirely opposite case: that if the authors were knowingly sitting on crucial knowledge during the campaign (I'm speaking here specifically about the depth of John Edwards' deceit), then shame on them. In fact, the authors' passages on John and Elizabeth Edwards - when culled out of the book and stitched together for a New York Magazine excerpt - made for truly shocking (and gripping) reading. It's one thing to have access. It's another to craft a narrative that literally brings goosebumps to the reader.

Again: you've NOT heard it all before - the depths of Hillaryland's dysfunction (Mark Penn and Patti Solis Doyle come out equally scorched); Obama's initial issues getting traction (we have short memories now but his ascension seemed hardly predestined in the incipient days of his campaign); candidate McCain's volatility (if possible, even worse than hinted at in the mainstream press); the lack of a vetting process for the Palin pick (a hot topic in the blogosphere, but here obviously asserted off the record by key McCainland insiders); and the inside story of McCain's 'campaign suspension' (if possible, he had even less of an idea of his purpose than how it played out on TV).

'Game Change' will appeal Beyond the Beltway and to more than just the political junkie. The 2008 campaign riveted the nation. Heilemann and Halperin remind us why. 'Game Change' stands as the definitive account of the race. It's unlikely to be surpassed.