Clark, described by Worthing as a ‘most extraordinary ordinary person’, is presented as a pioneering medical scientist in a form acceptable to a mass Australian readership. Worthing’s style is genial but bland, his research sound but unscholarly, without further reading recommendations or contextual references. Worthing alludes to, but never adequately explores, many aspects of the human enterprise that is medical research. In some cases, such as vivisection, he ignores them entirely. Worthing skates over Clark’s Christian beliefs, but inserts allusions to divine intervention at key times. Biography can be a problematic genre, particularly when written for a mass audience. This book is a case in point: in style it looks back to the heyday of construing history as the lives of ‘great figures’, lacking a sociological perspective. It is a missed opportunity for both author and publisher.