Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chessmaster is simply one of the most outstanding chess biographies ever written. This book is a fortuitous combination of an intriguing subject (Norman Whitaker), a dedicated archivist (Dale Brandreth) and an outstanding historian (John Hilbert).

When I took the job as the Chess Director at the Mechanics' Institute in the fall of 1998, one of the first things I noticed on the walls of the club was a picture of the participants of the 1923 Western States Chess Association Championship. Featured prominently in the photo is Norman Whitaker. Before reading Hilbert's account of his life, I thought I knew a lot about Whitaker, who I first saw on the cover of Chess Life & Review in the late 1960s. In fact, I had no idea how complex a personality he was.

Most chess players, if they know anything about Whitaker, remember that he was involved peripherally with the Lindbergh kidnapping. That is certainly true, but hardly does his life justice. Seldom does one come across a more disgusting and fascinating creature. Whitaker, who came from a good home and received an excellent education, managed to spend a fair amount of his life at Leavenworth, Alcatraz and a host of other federal and state penitentiaries. He was convicted at various times for auto theft, selling narcotics, blackmail and child molestation. Whitaker was certainly not a model for America's chess youth!

Hilbert, who was greatly assisted in this project by fellow chess historian Dale Brandreth, doesn't flinch from portraying Whitaker as he was. He also produces many reminiscences from people who knew the rascal and liked him. Whitaker could be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chessmaster draws from a treasure trove of thousands of personal letters court papers and chess scores discovered after Whitaker's death in 1975 to paint a balanced and complex picture.

This book, which features close to 500 pages of double column text, is incredibly thorough, not only in its coverage of Whitaker, but also of American chess from roughly 1910 into the 1960s. Anyone who thinks that the recent family feuds plaguing the USCF are something new for the organization, will quickly dispel these thoughts after reading Hilbert's book. All sorts of characters pop up through out Whitaker's life from Charles Lindbergh, J. Edgar Hoover, and Barbara Hutton. Whitaker even played on a team with a young Bobby Fischer.

Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chessmaster is not only a prose account of Whitaker's life. It also features 570 of his games, many of which include annotations from contemporary sources. By the way, Whitaker, who received the IM title late in life, was an accomplished endgame player. Selected Endings, which he authored with Glenn Hartleb, is a very nice little book.

The thing I found most interesting about this work was the recollections by people who personally knew Whitaker. Hilbert draws from a wide range of American players including the recently deceased Arthur Dake, IM Walter Shipman and noted book collector Jim Gates, who was the executor of Whitaker's estate.

John Hilbert, America's premier historian, has really outdone himself this time and produced a classic work. All chess players will find Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chessmaster an outstanding read. It would make an outstanding Christmas present. Hilbert and Dale Brandreth of Caissa Editions are to be congratulated.

Highly Recommended.