Book Review - Lanterne Rouge - Max Leonard

Max Leonard's 'Lanterne Rouge' is a book that takes a different look at the Tour de France. Rather than focusing on the winners of cycling's grand prize, Leonard focuses on the men who suffered through the Alps, the Pyrenees and over rough cobbled roads not to win, but just to say they finished.

Through the book we meet a fascinating range of characters, from Abdel-Kader Zaaf, the man so drunk or disorientated, or both, he rode the wrong way, to Igor and Iker Flores, the Spanish brothers who can both say they finished last in the Tour.

Lanterne Rouge is a book that is a refreshing break from the same old anecdotes being recycled over Tour history books, and the journey that Leonard focuses on from abandoning L'Etape du Tour at the start of the book, to his re-running of the event, is an effective backdrop to his quest to find out about the men who barely made the pages of L'Equipe.

The fact that Leonard also focuses on his research to find about the last-place finishers, especially about Arsene Millochau, is an effective and interesting insight into the work that goes in to researching a book. It also shows the unpredictability of early Tour history, where historians often have to rely on hearsay. 

Lanterne Rouge is excellent and original, and is a book I would thoroughly recommend, and not just because of the name. 

Book: Lanterne Rouge                             Author: Max Leonard                            Grade: A+