The Best American Crime Writing

July 5, 2004
Penzler and Cook's annual compendium of crime journalism showcases 20 essays on some notorious cases, as well as some major criminal justice and political issues, by well-known writers such as Scott Turow and James Ellroy and public figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Three pieces that first saw daylight in the pages of Atlantic Monthly
stand out: Kennedy's defense of Michael Skakel, which will lead many open-minded readers to reasonable doubt about his guilt in the murder of Martha Moxley; James Fallows's "Who Shot Mohammed Al-Dura?," which challenges the conventional wisdom that the 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed in the early days of the second intifada was the victim of Israeli snipers; and Black Hawk Down
author Mark Bowden's "The Dark Art of Interrogation," a discussion of coercive interrogation tactics that is especially timely given the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. The authorial commentaries that follows some of the articles give perspectives that would have been useful for all 20. The lack of a single piece on white-collar crime during a peak period of corporate corruption is regrettable. Still, the variety of subject matter and tone makes this an easy and thought-provoking read. Guest editor Joseph Wambaugh provides an introduction. Agent, Nat Sobel.

July 21, 2003
Surpassing even last year's acclaimed inaugural collection, Penzler and Cook, with guest editor Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), return with another candid and powerful selection of true crime reporting. The editors have pulled together an array of essays distinguished as much by their insight and intelligence as by their riveting tales of bizarre and unnerving criminality. Articles such as "The Accused" by Paige Williams (which exposes the legacy of suspicion that has haunted a wrongfully accused man since 1978) and "The Terrible Boy" (Tom Junod's brilliant and compassionate portrait of an unlucky kid who swung a fateful punch and became a poster child for antibullying movements across the nation) transcend the genre to explore the disregarded costs of justice and lives destroyed in moments of thoughtlessness. Some of the essays confront depraved atrocities, but others are only marginally associated with crime. "A Woman's Work" by Peter Landesman recounts how Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the former national minister of family and women's affairs for Rwanda, masterminded the rape and slaughter of thousands. While "The Boy Who Loved Transit" by Jeff Tietz tells the story of a harmless, lovable man with Asperger's syndrome whose obsession with trains leads him to repeatedly impersonate a New York City Transit Authority employee. This excellent collection covers Web-cam pornography, the Enron debacle, forced prostitution in Europe, killer attack dogs, the murder of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl, bumbling Nazi saboteurs and the science of rotting corpses—so there is sure to be something here for everyone.

Starred review from June 10, 2002
Penzler, founder of the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books, and true-crime writer Cook (Blood Echoes), inaugurate a new annual series with this first-rate collection of the best crime writing published in 2001. William Langewiesche delivers both the human and the technical events in "The Crash of EgyptAir 990"; Alex Prud'homme investigates the dilemma facing the state of Texas, which condemned Johnny Paul Penry, a retarded man, to death in its busy execution chamber; Julian Rubinstein portrays Jacob "Cookie" Organ, an Israeli who was "the Pablo Escobar of Ecstasy"; while Nancy Gibbs conjures a frightening September 11 play-by-play in "The Day of the Attack." The majority of the pieces have a finger on the cultural pulse, but the best offer something more. Robert Draper's portrayal of a troubled girl who eventually kills her two children includes a scathing criticism of society at large ("Strangely, the Texas authorities insist upon viewing Tina Marie's dirty-laundry list of boyfriends as the handiwork of a manipulative black widow.... The tsk-tsks fly"). E. Jean Carroll's "The Cheerleaders" is a morose and darkly ironic account of suicide, torture and murder in a town rumored to have been the model for Bedford Falls in It's a Wonderful Life.
Charles Bowden immerses readers in the muddled and too familiar world of a DEA agent slipping across the line in Mexico. This is an important book for crime buffs, but will appeal to general readers as well. The only complaint—and it's minor—is that, though the editors say they scoured "nearly two hundred so-called little magazines, reviews and journals," most of these articles come from such national magazines as the New Yorker, GQ
and the Atlantic Monthly.