"For more than three hundred years the legend of 'the man in the iron mask' has held a place on the stage of human enquiry and debate. From the time of his incarceration during the reign of Louis XIV right through to our modern day, the awful fate of the man condemned to live a lifetime with his face encased in iron has inspired, depending on the era, anger, horror, pity and fascination." So opened the New York Times review of the first edition of The Man Behind the Iron Mask.

John Noone's masterful account of the mystery presents all the known facts of the prisoner's existence chronologically as they have been discovered, including the famous legend immortalized in the nineteenth century by Alexander Dumas in his sequel to The Three Musketeers, and into modern times with the supposed discovery of his skeleton in an old tower in Cannes in 1977. Noone also offers his own intriguing solution to the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, telling the story of this mystery of enduring strength like no one else has.