Apart from the prospect of a lucrative publishing deal, no one is quite sure what prompted General Pervez Musharraf to rush out an autobiography while still president of Pakistan. The last incumbent Pakistani leader to write an autobiography was General Ayub Khan in 1967. Its title, Friends, Not Masters, reflected prevailing resentments at US policies towards Pakistan. Some bitterly noted that "Friends Not, Masters" would have been more fitting. As In the Line of Fire shows, in some ways little has changed in the past 40 years.

Heads of government rarely write revealing memoirs while in power but Musharraf's publishers managed to winkle out one or two scoops. His "revelation" that Richard Armitage, the former US deputy secretary of state,threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it failed to help avenge al-Qaeda's September 11 2001 attacks caught the headlines prior to publication.