Caissa Editions, Yorklyn, 2000, first edition, hardcover, vii+481 pp, 985 grams, many photos, 570 chess games and diagrams, condition:fine, as NEW.

With Shady Side John S. Hilbert has bestowed on us an extraordinary biography. The vita of a chess playing criminal (or criminal chess player), impressively worked up by the author, offers fascinating reading material for chess fans. The exceedingly good state of source material (archives Dale Brandreth) has considerably contributed to the success of the work which generally received rave reviews.

" Shady Side includes a three-hundred page biography devoted precisely to unveiling, in all its shame and glory, the life, the times, and the crimes of a chess player often hated and often loved, but rarely, if ever, ignored. Whitaker was nothing if not an accomplished conman, playing his tactical moves in life as much as over the board.  His problem, one he ultimately never solved either on the board or off, was how to concentrate on accumulating the small advantages that can result, eventually, in a strategic victory.  A brilliant tactician, he could be outmaneuvered by an equally talented master versed more deeply in strategy, either in chess or in life.  Whitaker’s blindness to his own inability to recognize the importance of strategy was, in a very real sense, the source of his downfall.  And thus Shady Side explores the hitherto hidden recesses of the ultimate conman of chess, who at times could con himself, as well." ' J.S.Hilbert