The authorised and uncensored biography, it says on the front, and it certainly isn't wrong. From start to finish, there's nothing sycophantic in this book, and indeed if it had been written in 1977, I think Mr Buckley would have some serious health problems by now.

The book dwells a great deal on The Early Days, though this might just be because there's a lot more to write about than recently - more fights, more incidents, just more everything. It skips over the Nice affair, which in my opinion is a good thing as it's been done to death elsewhere (starting with the excellent Much Ado and including the also excellent Men They Love to Hate) but deals honestly with band arguments, financial problems, band arguments, promoter problems, and did I mention band arguments?

"No Mercy" is a ripping read, and highly recommended to any Stranglers fan, though this is probably unneccessary as any Stranglers fan will buy it anyway. If you're anything like me, you'll come away with a great deal of admiration that, after all that has gone on, they still work together and produce the music and gigs that they do. I heartily disagreed with some of the comments on the music - I liked 'Ten', for example, and I think 'Someone Like you' is a great track. And it still left me with unanswered questions, like 'why doesn't Jet do the BBC sessions, given that he is the business mind behind the band'.