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No-one can live in Sherborne for long without becoming aware of Walter Raleigh. He has not only entered into the mythology of England's heroes; his presence broods over the New Castle and, in the Abbey, St Katherine's Chapel, where he had his pew.

For many of us, the standard work remains Robert Lacey's Sir Walter Raleigh (1975), perhaps fleshed out by Sherborne's own Reg Wood in his historical novel Gold was his star (1991). But in the last year or two there has been a new burst of interest in Raleigh, and a number of books about him and his wife.

Amongst these, one of the most interesting is Barbara O'Sullivan's Hic Jacet Sir Walter Raleigh. It lacks an index, so you can't just look up references to Sherborne. But it is packed full of intriguing cameos, long extracts from contemporary documents and other insights that you just won't find in the standard biographies. I have to confess I had always assumed that Raleigh's 1603 trial was in London. It wasn't: it was in Winchester. And Ms O'Sullivan's account of it from a 1677 pamphlet in the Hampshire Record Office makes gripping reading.

Beg, borrow or steal this volume. Better still, buy it. You will get more Raleigh and less author than in any other book I know. Ms O'Sullivan believes in letting her principal character speak for himself. I feel I know him a great deal better.