Compared with the recent life by A.N. Wilson, this is a scholarly rather than a generalised study, and some of the textual scholarship, in particular, may prove dense to the ordinary reader. (The author is a a professor at a French biblical institution in Jerusalem.) Paul's Tarsus childhood is described, his youthful studies in Jerusalem and his Pharisee-inspired persecution of the early Christians ending in his dramatic (and mysterious) conversion on the way to Damascus. His religious mission was to the Gentiles, not the Jews, and much of it was carried out in the Greek-speaking world, though his preaching in Athens was a failure. Paul's death as a martyr under Nero seems to be fact and not legend, and this book claims that it had probably been preceded by an abortive mission to Spain. Not an easy work to read, but one to keep and consult.
