Tony did produce an autobiography back in the 2000s. It was called Maine Man and was ghosted by David Clayton. With a few notable exceptions (Lakey's in particular, while Andy Morrison's also springs to mind), the quality of autobiographies by City-related figures isn't all that high IMO. However, I found Book's worth reading. He has a story that's more interesting than most ex-footballers having enjoyed such success after breaking into the professional game at such a later age, while for fans of my vintage he has some interesting reflections on his period as manager in the mid and late seventies.
He's quite revealing when discussing the early part of the 1978/9 season, just before Allison came back and when our form nosedived after successive seasons in which we finished second and fourth in the league. He explains that his contract was due to expire in the summer of 1979 and he was disappointed that the board showed no inclination to negotiate an extension despite the positive results he'd overseen in recent campaigns.
He says he was tipped off by one director that the board considered that we'd failed to kick on as we should have after going close to winning the title in 1977 and there'd been discussions about replacing Book with Bobby Robson of Ipswich. That would have been extremely harsh on Tony but at the same time Robson would have been an excellent appointment. Book then entered into serious talks with Leeds over their vacant manager's position and implies that, if offered, he'd have accepted the job. Unfortunately for him (and probably Leeds!), he lost out to Jimmy Adamson, who moved to Elland Road from Sunderland.
Reading this account, I suspected that Allison was brought back so that the directors could avoid the unpleasantness that would have been associated with sacking Book, with the two men expected to work together owing to their previous close association. This was one of those ideas that, in practice, wasn't nearly as successful as the theory suggested it might be. Unfortunately, I don't think that Tony was ever going to be able to be the restraining influence on Malcolm that Joe Mercer had been during City's halcyon days under that pair.
When Mercer appointed Allison as coach, the latter was making his way in the role and was willing to listen to an experienced older figure who'd enjoyed great success in the game. But with Book, while I'm sure there was a great deal of genuine respect between the two men, I doubt that Malcolm was ever likely to cede much ground to someone who'd once been his protégé. The relationship just had a totally different dynamic.
Swales did have a relatively small number of shares at the outset and all the way through until the autumn of 1984, so roughly halfway through his period as chairman. At that point, there was a GBP 750,000 share issue which allowed PJS to take his personal shareholding to around 32% (I've forgotten precisely what he owned prior to this, but my vague recollection is that he more or less doubled the number of shares he owned).
More crucially, Stephen Boler came on board at this point and also picked up 32% of the club as part of the same issue. At that point, Boler had no interest in taking an active involvement and simply backed Swales more or less unconditionally. Their combined shareholdings left Swales in an impregnable position in terms of his grip on the club. But for a long time, even after relegation in 1983, that wasn't the case. However, no one emerged who had the ability and desire to offer a challenge, while in his excellent post @sw4blue explains how he went about ensuring the loyalty of those around him.