Author: Rachel Abrams & James Stewart

 Rating: Four out of Four ghostly apparitions

Ease Of Reading: 416 pages. This book constantly shocks you as you have a front row seat to the depths of human depravity.

When To read: After being harangued by your brother-in-law about how corporations are so much more efficient than the government.

 First, I do not want to bury the lead. Unscripted --The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy -- is exhaustively researched, painstakingly presented, and always in danger of swerving off the narrative path as the Redstone saga branches off into the CBS Chief Les Moonves's self-inflicted meltdown. However, co-authors Rachel Abrams and James B. Stewart are expert co-captains and manage to avoid the rocky shoals of the multifaceted tendrils of this unwieldy tale.

While the story is ostensibly about billionaire media tycoon Sumner Redstone and his immediate family, we are treated to villains who pulsate with greed, ambition, and lust. Redstone caretakers Sydney Holland and Manuela Herzer make Thanos, the world destroyer from The Avengers, appear timid compared to their power and money grab, and their mistreatment of an old and feeble billionaire who spent a lifetime abusing others.

As the Hollywood Reporter quipped when reviewing the book --  “Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing.”

Unscripted attempts to unwind the various narrative surrounding Sumner Redstone, owner of Paramount, Viacom, and CBS. That primary narrative of a dysfunctional family makes the Kardashians look normal. And that's hard to do.

In the preface of the book, readers learn that authors Abrams and Stewart were initially working separately on different parts of the Redstone family conflagration. It was only after CBS President Les Moonves set himself ablaze with numerous of sexual abuse that they joined forces. He once masturbated in front of his diabetes doctor when she resisted his unwanted physical advances.

James B. Stewart is the author of Deep State, Tangled Webs, Heart of a Soldier, Blind Eye, Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. He is currently a columnist for The New York Times and a professor at Columbia Journalism School. In 1988, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading.

Rachel Abrams was a media reporter for The New York Times and is now a senior producer and reporter for the television series The New York Times Presents. In 2018, she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for reporting that exposed sexual harassment and misconduct. Cleverly, the authors structure the book by SEASON and the chapters as EPISODES, paralleling the format of a TV series. Some of the content about Redstone's and others sexual exploits could make the owners of Pornhub blush.  Except for Redstone's daughter Shari, who does escape the moral turpitude of the other cast of characters, the book is awash in people who make the Royals in Netflix's The Crown seem almost human.  For shareholders of any company owned by a billionaire, Unscripted should be a wake-up call that these entitled tycoons blur the line between their personal money and the resources of the corporation, which is owned by the shareholders. In the book, Sumner Redstone spent hundreds of millions of the corporation's money on personal purchases, vengeance money used to settle personal vendettas, and demands that Redstone female companions receive jobs they didn't deserve and perks that would drain corporation coffers.
There are a few delectable ironies here. First, Sumner Redstone spent an adult lifetime using people and then discarding them. Then at an advanced age and in poor health, he is used and abused by his two ersatz caretakers, Sydney Holland and Manuela Herzer. Then CBS chief Les Moonves goes to war with Shari Redstone for control of the company at stake, apparently unaware or morally blind to his multiple past sexual advances.
The authors explain this blind spot with a quote from veteran producer and CBS board member Arnold Kopelson who was baffled by concerns over Moonves's alleged advances in the workplace and said dismissively: "We all did that." Again, no heroes here.
 The book is as intricate as any Ludlum spy novel, and offers as many twists and turns as an Agatha Christie novel. It's enjoyable to read, and the authors toil diligently so that readers can keep track of the cast of evil and malicious characters. It's hard to keep the names straight when almost every character has long ago sold their soul to the devil...or worse, Sumner Redstone.

Reading this book is like getting on a roller coaster that you absolutely know will return to this spot, but you have no idea at all how it will do that or the track it will follow.
In the preface, the authors make a prophetic statement about the state of American culture and economy.
"The drama may have unfolded may have occurred at Viacom and CBS, but the recent drumbeat of greed, backstabbing, plotting, and betrayal at the upper levels of American business and society has hardly been confined to one or two companies or one wealthy family and its hangers-on." If anyone thinks that Sumner Redstone, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos could possibly make this world a better place, please read this book.