E-Book Overview
The 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers the year's most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, including Peter Landesman's article about female sex slaves (the most requested and widely read <em>New York Times story of 2004), a piece from <em>The New Yorker by Stephen J. Dubner (the coauthor of Freakanomics ) about a high-society silver thief, and an extraordinarily memorable ''ode to bar fights'' written by Jonathan Miles for <em>Men's Journal after he punched an editor at a staff party. But this year's edition includes a bonus -- an original essay by James Ellroy detailing his fascination with Joseph Wambaugh and how it fed his obsession with crime -- even to the point of selling his own blood to buy Wambaugh's books. Smart, entertaining, and controversial, The Best American Crime Writing is an essential edition to any crime enthusiast's bookshelf.
E-Book Content
The Best American
CRIME WRITING
2005 E d i t e d
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An e-book excerpt from
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CONTENTS
Thomas H. Cook and Otto Penzler James Ellroy
Preface
Introduction
Peter Landesman
THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR T H E O N E S T H A T G O T AWAY
Robert Draper
ix 1 31
T H E F A M I LY M A N
45
M Y S T E R I O U S C I R C U M S TA N C E S
69
T H E V I RU S U N D E R G RO U N D
107
Skip Hollandsworth David Grann
v
Clive Thompson Jonathan Miles Lawrence Wright
P U N C H D RU N K L O V E
129
T H E T E R RO R W E B
143
iii
CONTENTS
Craig Horowitz
A N ATO M Y
Justin Kane and Jason Felch Bruce Porter Jeff Tietz
OF A
F O I L E D P L OT
TO C A T C H
AN
O L I G A R C H 191
A L O N G WAY D O W N
215
FINE DISTURBANCES
Stephen J. Dubner Philip Weiss
237
T H E S I LV E R T H I E F
255
S TA L K I NG H E R K I L L E R
Debra Miller Landau
T H E S E L F - D E S T RU C T I O N
James Ellroy
C H O I R B OY S
Permissions and Acknowledgments About the Editors Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher
281
S OCIA L DISGR ACES
Neil Swidey
177
OF AN
295 M.D. 317 345 365
P R E FAC E
T H E Y E A R 2004 WA S profoundly political. Thus it was not surprising that a great deal of newspaper and magazine space was given over to the Democratic primaries and, later, to the presidential campaign. Nonetheless, the best of our nation’s crime writers were not silenced by the crashing symbols of our quadrennial bash. Amid all the hoopla, they made their voices heard, and the finest of those voices have been gathered into this, the fourth volume of Best American Crime Writing. As in previous editions, the tone of those voices vary tremendously. There is sadness in the voice of Peter Landesman as he relates the tragic plight of “The Girls Next Door.” In “Stalking Her Killer,” Philip Weiss’s voice seems eternally haunted by a murder that was solved . . . but never punished. Comic irony pervades Jonathan Miles’s tale of bar-brawling, while the irony of Neil Swidey’s “The Self-Destruction of an M.D.” is very dark indeed. Bruce Porter, Justin Kane, and Jason Felch record a similarly dark descent in “A Long Way Down” and “To Catch an Oligarch.” A similar descent