A NEW MAIMONIDES BIOGRAPHY by Joel L. Kraemer is reviewed in Commentary Magazine by David C. Flatto. A good bit of the review is about Maimonides in general rather than about the book, but here's an excerpt:

Kraemer follows the stages of Maimonides’ life and work through the four geographic locations in which he resided, placing his prolific output and multiple interests within the context of his time and place. Skillfully, he weaves excerpts from the writings into the biography. Thus, the story of Maimonides’ lone visit to Jerusalem draws both on a public epistle to the Jews of Yemen and on the Mishneh Torah's “Laws of the Temple,” which include the directive that one must continue to treat the site of the ruined sanctuary with reverence. The portrait of Maimonides’ heroic efforts to ransom Jews taken hostage by Crusaders and pirates similarly cuts to the Mishneh Torah’s “Laws of Gifts to the Poor,” which enumerate no fewer than seven biblical commandments that are violated if a captive is not ransomed (“for not only is the captive included in the general category of the hungry, the thirsty, and the naked, but also his very life is in jeopardy”). And so on.

Kraemer also sheds useful light on aspects of Maimonides’ personal life, exploring his early education and mentors, his close relationship with his brother, the ugly confrontation with a rival in Fustat nicknamed “Zuta the Wicked,” and his devotion to his student Joseph (the epistolary addressee of the Guide), his son Abraham, and his many followers. An early chapter revisits the controversial thesis, dating back to the 18th century, that Maimonides outwardly submitted to a forced conversion to Islam in his youth.

To illuminate Maimonides’ writings, Kraemer draws on a wide array of primary sources, from documents stored in the Cairo Genizah (a rich repository of manuscripts from the medieval period that was re-discovered in the 19th century) to the works of Arabic historians, geographers, poets, and philosophers. He is particularly helpful in identifying the formative influence of leading Arab Aristotelians like Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. For the major treatises, he offers sturdy introductions to genre, layout, and structure, summarizes the principal themes, and discusses intellectual roots.

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There are drawbacks. Crammed with information, Kraemer’s book is at times too dense, at others too thin. One learns more than one needs to know about details like the number of biblical citations in the first book of the Mishneh Torah; by contrast, complex philosophical and rhetorical themes (e.g., the notion of God’s indwelling or the stylistic use of semantic equivalence) are merely summarized. In an instance where he offers a fuller presentation of a fundamental issue—Maimonides’ formulation of thirteen “principles of faith”—Kraemer fails to inquire into the reasons for his selecting or omitting specific dogmas, the absence of any mention of the principles in his more mature works, or the motivation behind this unprecedented theological project.

The analysis of Maimonides’ legal code is especially inadequate. ...