Admittedly, it is nigh on impossible to understand the man's public service without repeated reference to unsavoury peccadilloes and their political consequences.
But Nigel Hamilton's focus on all things salacious seems excessive and suggests, particularly given the book's cinematic storyboard structure, that scholarship has been sacrificed to commercial exploitation.
Whilst academics will be disappointed that there's nothing new here, a broader audience may appreciate the convenience of being spoon-fed pre- digested details that escaped attention the first time around.
It was just a couple decades ago that Hamilton won the Whitbread Prize for his definitive three- volume work on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
Then in 2001 he revisited the material, with the unfortunately titled Full Monty, examining his subject's sexual orientation. This new focus was perhaps an indication of either the author's changing interests or evidence of a sensationalist trend in biography. Or both.
In any event, readers may be disappointed but should not be surprised if they detect a disparity between the quality of earlier research and that which has gone into Clinton.
There are glaring, though relatively unimportant, inaccuracies. As, for example, the display of political dyslexia when Right-wing Senator Joe McCarthy is confused with the arch-Lefty, Senator Gene McCarthy.
Or when the author mistakes a Clinton letter's reference to Whittier (President Nixon's birthplace) and Perdenales (President Johnson's riverside ranch) for allusions to supposed law school texts.
These are errors no American biographer would likely make but, as a Brit, Hamilton may make up in objectivity for what he lacks in familiarity with his subject.
Objectivity is in short supply when it comes to judging Clinton. To date most who have written his history have been vested-interest insiders.
Moreover, his career is so closely entwined with his wife's future impact that writers' (and their sources') agendas cannot safely be taken at face value.
Then, too, Clinton all but ensures speculation and conjecture by denying access to his presidential papers. The former President won't open the library until his own spin has been written, published, and sold in sufficient numbers.
Biographers have had to rely on masses of interviews with minor players without so much as the disciplining benefit of a paper record to challenge or even test the context of his sources' assertions.
Hamilton would probably be the first to admit that synthesising volumes of secondary material is no substitute for dispassionate examination of contemporarily created documentation.
Given the constraints with which it has had to contend, it is difficult not to recommend this book which, frustratingly, is not far different from the popular perception of its subject: basically flawed, even a bit squalid, but compellingly interesting nevertheless.
David Bushong is a former diplomat, intelligence expert, and international lawyer who worked for some years on the staff of a US senator.
Century, 784pp, $79.95.