The art market stinks to high hell and in Dark Side of the Boom Georgina Adam, one of the finest analysts of its machinations, has taken on the challenge of being a Virgil to guide us through the circles of this underworld, a place of shadows, deals and greed. One might at least expect it to be well decorated, but when the artists Adam refers to merely, for instance, produce giant Xs printed onto canvas by an Epson Stylus Pro, even that redemption seems out of reach.

The circles we are taken through are carefully sectioned out: ‘Supply’, ‘Demand: China Wakes’, ‘What’s the Price?’, ‘The Problems with Authentication’, ‘A Tsunami of Forgery’, ‘Investment’, ‘Speculation’ and ‘The Dark Side’. There are moments when Adam refers us to future chapters to fill out background information. In the