The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [0]
Guest Editor
Jeffrey Toobin
Series Editors
Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook
Contents
Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook | Preface
Jeffrey Toobin | Introduction
Calvin Trillin | The Color of Blood
L. Jon Wertheim | Breaking the Bank
Dan P. Lee | Body Snatchers
Mark Boal | Everyone Will Remember Me as Some Sort of Monster
Sabrina Rubin Erdely | The Fabulous Fraudulent Life of Jocelyn and Ed
David Grann | True Crime
Michael J. Mooney | The Day Kennedy Died
Mark Arax | The Zankou Chicken Murders
Charles Bowden | Mexico’s Red Days
R. Scott Moxley | Hate and Death
Stephen Rodrick | Dead Man’s Float
Alec Wilkinson | Non-Lethal Force
Hanna Rosin | American Murder Mystery
John Colapinto | Stop, Thief!
Matt McAllester | Tribal Wars
About the Editors
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Best American CRIME REPORTING
Editors
2002: NICHOLAS PILEGGI
2003: JOHN BERENDT
2004: JOSEPH WAMBAUGH
2005: JAMES ELLROY
2006: MARK BOWDEN
2007: LINDA FAIRSTEIN
2008: JONATHAN KELLERMAN
Preface
IF CRIME DIDN’T PAY, as none other than G. Gordon Liddy once noted, there wouldn’t be any. The varied ways in which crime can pay—at least in the short run—are amply represented in this year’s edition of The Best American Crime Reporting.
Take dead bodies, for example. As Dan P. Lee demonstrates in “Body Snatchers,” there is real money to be made in the cadaver trade. The overhead is light, just a few sharp saws and a little storage space (not necessarily refrigerated). And in terms of marketing, one only needs a few choice customers who don’t ask too many questions.
Using other people’s credit cards can also be quite lucrative, according to Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “The Fabulous Fraudulent Life of Jocelyn and Ed,” though controlling debt is really a must when spending other people’s money.
Shoplifting may undoubtedly bring in a tidy income, but as John Colapinto warns in “Stop, Thief!” the sticky-fingered must be careful of many unseen eyes.
In some cases, however, boldness wins the prize, as it does in “Breaking the Bank,” L. Jon Wertheim’s story of cage fighter “Lightning” Lee Murray, mastermind of the largest cash heist in criminal history.
The preceding stories show crime at its most comic and unusual. Others in this year’s edition of The Best American Crime Reporting show it at its most tragic.
In Mark Arax’s “The Zankou Chicken Murders,” a hugely successful family business drowns in a pool of blood. Blind prejudice claims a wholly innocent victim in R. Scott Moxley’s aptly titled “Hate and Death,” while misunderstanding of another kind claims a quite different victim in Calvin Trillin’s sobering account of a Long Island murder case, “The Color of Blood.”
How crime spreads is the subject of Hanna Rosin’s sadly illuminating “American Murder Mystery,” a tale of good intentions gone disastrously awry. How crime can be thoughtlessly imported to our shores is the disturbing lesson to be taken from Matt McAllester’s “Tribal Wars.”
The clever solving of a crime is the subject of David Grann’s fascinating account of a bizarre cold case in “True Crime.” However, a Sherlock Holmes approach has nothing to do with bringing down criminals in Alec Wilkinson’s “Non-Lethal Force,” though as he makes clear, there is considerable intelligence behind the increasingly innovative technology of apprehending them alive.
A whole country destroyed by crime is the subject of Charles Bowden’s harrowing “Mexico’s Red Days,” while a crime that changed the world is brought to life again in Michael J. Mooney’s “The Day Kennedy Died.”
These and other stories in this year’s The Best American Crime Reporting demonstrate that although crime itself may or may not pay, reading what the best of America’s writers have to say about it is profitable indeed.
We welcome submissions from any writer, editor, publisher, agent, or other interested party for The Best American Crime Reporting 2010. Please send the publication or a tear sheet with the name of the publication,