Part of Day One’s People in the Bible series, this is a study of the life and career of Saul, that all-too human mixture of vanity and insecurity, totally unfit to rule, made king by God. Mr Edwards, a renowned Bible scholar and theologian, has not one shred of sympathy for him, is consistent in never giving him the benefit of the doubt, and is so determined that the reader should feel the same that he occasionally over-eggs the pudding, straying into inaccuracy as to the first mention of David in the Bible, and once imposing motives on Saul unsupported by scripture but henceforth treated as fact. A very thorough dissection of the depressing object lesson that is Saul, as his downwards spiral away from God leads him through envy to misjudgement to atrocity, ending in inevitable defeat and death. Jonathan and Mephibosheth, characterised by their humility and Godliness, are held up in contrast, as is David – just as humanly fallible but sound at heart – who never spoke a bad word of his mentor-turned-enemy because he was God’s anointed. Saul may have been a disastrous king, but as a divinely-appointed example of how not to handle responsibility he does a sterling job to this day.