The stated goal of this volume (C) is to focus on key concepts and underlying principles of inorganic biochemistry. By and large, the volume is successful in identifying the key concepts and principles, but there are many topics covered and the book tends to be more comprehensive in coverage than one would expect from the stated goals. Thus, although the vast majority of investigators in the field would likely find their area of research mentioned at some level, the almost encyclopedic coverage may not be suitable for students or for experienced scientists from other disciplines.
It is stated that the reader will get better guidance to the primary literature in this volume than the previous edition. This might be true but I do not believe that enough of the topics covered also contain citations to the primary literature. Instead one is given a fairly good list of sources of information such as series, textbooks, etc, and a rather patchy lead into the primary literature. This failing may in part be understandable in view of the large number of the topics treated. While I was evaluating the volume, a student asked me for lead references to magnetic coupling. I decided to check how the volume might help him. As with many topics treated, there was a good presentation of key concepts and general equations were presented. However, there was no clear lead in to the literature. In contrast, a competing work [''Principles of Bioinorganic Chemistry'' by S. J. Lippard and J. M. Berg (LB)] had similar but less detailed information but provided a very useful reference to a review article devoted to this subject. The LB work is more structurally oriented than the C volume and presents material in a manner more appealing to the eye. I think it is likely to be more attractive to students. Compared to the C treatment, the LB volume is meant to function as an overall organization for the lecturer with his or her own notes.
An instructor starting afresh might be able to utilize the Cowan work to prepare a set of lecture notes on the field.