Starting his reign in 1927, Alexander Alekhine dominated the world of elite chess for more than a decade. To this day, he is the only world chess champion to die while holding the title. On his way to the top, Alekhine dodged artillery on World War I battlefields, narrowly escaped a Bolshevik firing squad and negotiated with Nazis to escape occupied Paris. He also earned a reputation as a "grandmonster" of chess: arrogant, amoral and alcoholic.

This book explores both the triumphs that established Alekhine as one of the most creative minds ever to storm the chess world and the tragic choices that ended his career and, finally, his life. He is still one of the most controversial figures in chess history, but competitive chess as we know it would not exist without him.