BOOK REVIEW | Romen Bose states that he had a front-row seat to much of the action during the Najib Abdul Razak administration, and was privy “to the discussions in the halls of power as storm after political storm buffeted” it.

Najib, during his prime ministership, conducted over 20 face-to-face interviews with Bose for a book which was never published. Nonetheless, Bose used much of those materials in his portrayal of the Najib administration, “Final Reckoning: An Insider’s View of the Fall of Malaysia's Barisan Nasional Government” released last December.

Anyone expecting to read an objective narrative of the Najib government would be disappointed with this hagiography. To expect anything else from someone who claims to be close to the decision making elite in the years leading to the historic general election in May 2018 would be surprising.

Bose engineered access to Najib, and then served as his spin-doctor. The product is an attempt to whitewash Najib from personal responsibility for...