Alec Guinness Master of Disguise, by Gary O'Connor (Sceptre, £6.99)

Alec Guinness may well, as, his biographer writes in his opening sentence, be a secret wrapped in an enigma inside a. mystery it makes for a good opening sentence, but things get trickier later on, and in his efforts to penetrate the mystery while remaining aloof from his subject, Gary O'Connor ends up very much on the sidelines of this intensely private life. Still, it's more than competently written and there is, as you would expect from a director turned biographer, plenty of intelligent analysis of stage craft the best chapter, though, is his engrossing essay on Guinness's characterisation of John le Carre's inscrutable hero George Smiley. "A blank who stays a blank" is the verdict on Smiley Guinness, after 300 pages, does much the same.