Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2025

'Thoroughly encapsulates the current state of the hurt business' Telegraph, Best Books of 2025 

For fifty years Donald McRae has followed boxing. As criminality and corruption spread, his love for the sport dimmed. In 2018, grieving his sister’s death and his parents’ illness, he turned back to boxing – just as Tyson Fury’s improbable resurrection proved the ring could still offer redemption.

McRae takes us close to champions including Fury, Canelo Álvarez, Katie Taylor and Oleksandr Usyk. He doesn’t shy away from exploring huge themes – doping, state repression, war – and he doesn’t flinch from recording the thudding hits or the heartbreak a fighter feels in defeat. And in telling the devastating story of Patrick Day, he confronts death in the ring.

The Last Bell is McRae’s most personal and unflinching book, a clear-eyed reckoning with life and the sport he can’t let go.

‘Exhilarating and terrifying’ Herald 

"‘Boxing’s grim appeal is revisited by one of its finest chroniclers, alongside a more personal story of loss and grief. Drawn back into the fight game by Tyson Fury’s redemption story, McRae takes us ringside to some thrilling bouts. It’s full of tender insight, and thoroughly encapsulates the current state of the hurt business’ " - Telegraph, Best Books of 2025 

"'You finish this powerful and poignant book with renewed admiration for the courage of many of the boxers, while being contemptuous of the extravagant circus that surrounds them'" - Sunday Times, Book of the Week

"'Characteristically riveting . . . results in an unusual and fascinating level of access'" - Spectator

"‘Boxing might not deserve [McRae’s] talent. But it sure as hell needs it.’  " - Fight Post