Nancy Reagan: The unauthorized biography - Kitty Kelley (First edition)

Following on the worldwide success of her previous biographies of Jacqueline Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra, kitty Kelley now turns the spotlight on another former First Lady to produce the most devastating exposé of its kind ever published. Her account of Nancy Reagan's  childhood, schooling, film career and life as a politician's wife unmasks a woman who was calculating in the extreme in her pursuit of power from an early age. Much has been written already about the Reagan administration, including anodyne volumes by both the major players, but until now nobody has revealed in such sizzling detail the way that the Presidency was influenced and the White House run by this singularly ruthless and ambitious woman.

Kitty Kelley's shrewd and psychologically perceptive portrait is the product of five years' meticulous research and over one thousand interviews. It provides a picture of a singularly complex woman - a superb public performer and formidable strategist, yet prone in large measure to social vanity, materialism and vengefulness. And in effect it puts into perspective the whole American electoral system, showing how it was possible for someone of modest accomplishment but startling ambition to create her husband's career and thus become without question the most powerful woman in the world.