CLINT EASTWOOD is far from being "the man with no name" - everyone in Hollywood, and indeed most of the western world, knows who he is and although there've been plenty of biogs and other books featuring him to date, it's all here, finally, in a book in which you can fully appreciate his long and illustrious work onscreen.

This wonderful hardbacked tome boasts +250 pages of excellent black-and-white and colour imagery, and charts his career from 1955 right through to his present directorial effort in Invictus. Here, we learn about his early TV days as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide, along with his appearances in B-movies like Revenge of the Creature, where he slowly honed his craft. At this time too, of course, he'd been busy soaking up directorial clues so that, years later, he could himself go behind the camera to display his intelligence and brilliant eye.

Each of his films is broken down into interesting, easy-to-digest detail with photos and post illustrations littered throughout - and remain reminders of a most fascinating career. Each section delivers quotes both from Eastwood and from the many who worked with him and emergent is his infamous no-nonsense attitude that has helped secure his place in Hollywood history.

CLINT: A RETROSPECTIVE is of course a "must" for Eastwood fans, though the book will also suit non-aficionados, serving as a useful introduction to his work. It's also unafraid to examine his "flops", Pink Cadillac among them, and here we get frank admissions as to all kinds of mistakes making the work refreshingly unsycophantic, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.

- Review by Mark Cook