Alexander the Great: murdered in Babylon, resurrected in Skopje

Roxanne; Alexander's first wife and queen, driven insane by her jealousy of Alexander's Persian second wife.

Statira; daughter of the defeated Darius III, who openly threatened to kill Alexander to avenge her father's death

Meleager; who frowned upon Alexander's self-deification and who survived the purge of the loyal Macedonian cohorts in favor of Persian recruits.

Lastly, Perdiccas; Alexander's second-in-command and instant beneficiary from his untimely demise.

Phillips then proceeds to place the whole event in intricate, rich, and panoramic historical/cultural context. He suggests a plausible solution to the enigma of Alexander's murder, culprit, method and aftermath.

This, in itself, renders the book the ultimate, intelligent 'whodunit'. But Phillips' main (possibly inadvertent) contribution may be the emergence of another profile of Alexander: querulous, paranoid, delusionally megalomaniac, hostile, treacherous and flippant.

In other word: a narcissistic psychopath.

Fast forward 2300 years.

The government of the Republic of Macedonia has recently changed the name of its puny airport to "Alexander the Great".

This was only the latest symptom of a growing cult of personality.

Modern-day Macedonians, desperately looking for their ancient roots in a region hostile to their nationhood, have latched onto their putative predecessor with a zeal that defies both historical research and the howls of protest from their neighbour; Greece.

In a typical Balkan tit-for-tat, Greece blocked Macedonia's long-sought entry into NATO, citing, among a litany of reasons, the "irredentist provocation" that was the renaming of the airport.