Fakers, Forgers and Phoneys Magnus Magnusson Mainstream, 416pp, £17.99 ISBN 1845962109

"What a gem!" exclaims Magnus Magnusson, zinging chattily round his rogues gallery of dodgy archaeologists, poet-plagiarists, pseudo-Picassos and pretenders. Only a grouch would begrudge him his fun, even though (like many enthusiasts) he’s sometimes more interested in, than on, his subject: the life and times of 16 famous "scams and scamps".

Magnusson is a genial host even on paper, mixing clear expositions with twinkle-eyed knuckle-raps for the knaves. His writing has a straight-to-TV feel – episodes ask whodunnit or howdunnit rather than why. Complications are relieved by disarming clarifiers such as: "So who was he, this Thomas Chatterton?" And the investigations employ more avuncular clichés than a Crimewatch copper.

Yet the absence of interviewees can leave the literary chronicles as colourless as CVs that list the publication dates but not the poetry. Iolo Morganwg, a visionary and a prolific one-man-mythology for Wales, is "splendidly quotable" – but you’ll have to ransack the appendix to find one of his triads. Despite this, though, and the fact that the episodic format is a bit repetitive and lacks a wide-angle on the whole, Fakers, Forgers and Phoneys (the series) would be well worth setting the VCR for.

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