(FORTUNE Magazine) – Frankly, I didn't expect Tough Calls: AT&T and the Hard Lessons Learned from the Telecom Wars to be very tough at all. Author Dick Martin used to be AT&T's head of public relations, the guy who put a positive spin on even the bleakest AT&T news. And he let his former boss, Mike Armstrong, read a draft of the book before publication.

Fortunately, Martin doesn't flinch from portraying AT&T and many of its executives in unflattering ways. A fly on the wall during many critical moments in AT&T's tumultuous history, Martin is at his best when he shows the side of executives the rest of us never get to see. In one delicious scene, former AT&T president John Walter urges a waiter at a company dinner to sample some of the wine he's just poured. When the server declines, citing a house policy against drinking on the job, Walter snaps, "Your only policy should be to please the customer." (Walter lasted all of nine months at Ma Bell.) Martin also offers glimpses of corporate power plays. Shortly after Comcast agreed to buy AT&T's cable operations, CEO Brian Roberts tells Martin that AT&T's Armstrong shouldn't expect a role in the new company--before he shares that opinion with Armstrong. "People can't be confused about who's running Comcast. And it isn't Mike," Roberts says.

Throughout the book, Martin adheres to the write-what-you-know rule, and he knows PR. The result is a tome that may help future flacks avoid AT&T's PR mistakes, but if there's one complaint it's that he doesn't do much to help the general-interest reader understand the decline of this iconic American corporation. -- Stephanie N. Mehta