Pan Macmillan authors had a secret weapon

 – until this weekend, when the frequent, enthusiastic reviewer of their books on Amazon was revealed to be Jeremy Trevathan, the head of the publishing house’s adult division.
This was greeted by the usual outrage in the literary world (a place so fabulously cattish that it makes schoolgirls’ changing rooms look like a kindly environment), one only matched by the reaction to the revelation that the new Tory party co-chairman, Grant Shapps, secretly airbrushed his own Wikipedia entry, editing out various political gaffes and sub-par exam results.
As so often when online scribblings are revealed to be anything less than the whole truth, I’m left bemused. Amazon reviews – usually a medley of bitchiness and covert self-puffery – just like Wikipedia entries, should be read for entertainment value only.