Our esteemed colleague Aaron Patrick is penning an unauthorised biography of James Packer, written in the year of the casino mogul's 50th birthday.
While the book's title is an official secret, we can say it's being published by Black Inc, and Patrick - a senior writer at the AFR - will be looking at all aspects of Packer's life: from his gilded upbringing in Sydney's eastern suburbs to his attempt to turn Crown into a global luxury brand.
A contributor to The Washington Post and The New York Times, and a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, Patrick is just finishing off his third book: an account of adventurer Michael Smith's record-setting around-the-world trip in a seaplane in 2015.
His first two books were about the downfall of prime ministers: Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.
He'll have a lot of ground to cover with Packer – the last major book on the billionaire was written by Paul Barry in 2009, and since then the mogul's been very, very busy. This year alone (and this isn't anywhere near an exhaustive list), he made the gossip pages by dating then breaking up with Mariah Carey, he made the news pages in the midst of an Israeli corruption inquiry by allegedly providing lavish gifts to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, naturally, he's provided continual fodder for the financially minded scribes at this paper.
