So here we all are, another day in the political and biographical trenches, another spectacular tour-de-force from Mark Bourrie. Last week it was Jean de Brebeuf, the week before that, Pierre Radisson. In between, the man  delivered media mogul George McCullagh. You can see why some of us are getting fed up with this guy.

Even so, I have to say hats off to the author and his publisher, Dan Wells at Biblioasis. Hats off, gentlemen, for getting this definitive takedown into the bookstores in timely fashion.

Can I find fault? Well, I’m not crazy about the title, which comes from a New York Times columnist who distinguished between two kinds of politicians: Rippers don’t care who or what they destroy as they fight and claw for power, while Weavers try to build consensus. Accurate enough, but too evocative of certain historical figures. I would have preferred something like Canada’s Angriest Man.

That said, Ripper has no business being so detailed and wide-ranging, so authoritative and convincing, so brilliantly analytical and colourfully entertaining. While  he tracks the emergence of Pierre Poilievre as a right-wing ideologue – no evolution ever happened – the author gets off more than a few zingers.

Backed by a “Tory bench full of rippers,” he writes, Poilievre is “still the angriest person on Canada’s political stage, and the nastiest leader of a major party in this country’s history. . . . The sneering, the incivility, the insults, the over-the-top accusations, the utter meanness sets Poilievre apart from the rest of the people in the national sphere.” Okay, but how do we really feel about the man?

Bourrie sums up by quoting Kim Campbell, former Conservative prime minister, who says she can’t vote for a party led by “a liar and a hate-monger.”

There’s more, lots more. Basically, if this man is elected, he will wreak havoc. But Bourrie also warns that “Poilievre is the best campaigner in Canada, the most effective since Jean Chretien. . . . [He] has money, mainstream media companies, conservative online media, many provincial politicians, conservative think tanks, and most of the major pollsters on his side.”

Bottom line: are we worried yet? This book suggests we should be.