There is so little written in English on the law of Saudi Arabia that any book is to be welcomed as water in a legal desert of information. This book is an oasis of information although the water is occasionally a little brackish. One of the authors (Mian) is a practising lawyer in Saudi Arabia and it is no doubt due to him that the book contains its rich references to original Saudi legal documentation: books, regulations, articles and cases. The second author seems to be a practising U.S. lawyer (possibly with a Middle Eastern practice) and it is presumably to her that the book owes its references to the little western material available. The material upon which the book is written is one of its main strengths; it is therefore unusual (not to say depressing) that no effort was made to put the references into a biliography. This is