Customer Reviews

The Best American Crime Reporting 2009

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have enjoyed the Best American Crime Reporting series for many years, so I was thrilled when I saw that my local library had the 2009 edition. I read all of the stories and there are some gems in this collection. On the whole, however, I thought that this collection contained more "clunkers" than did other collections in this series.

The best stories in this collection are fantastic. My favorites were:

- Body Snatchers (from Philadelphia magazine) is about a group of crooked funeral homes directors and physicians that sold the organs of deceased people. The story is interesting both for what it says about the ways that we react to death and for the depths to which some people will sink to make a dollar.

- "The Fabulous Fraudulent Life of Jocelyn and Ed" (from Rolling Stone) is about two wealthy Philadelphia college students who funded their jet-set lifestyle through identity theft. The real interest here is the story of Jocelyn - a beautiful woman who lied and manipulated her way through life for reasons that remain murky.

- "True Crime" (from The New Yorker) was my favorite story in the collection. It concerns the murder of Polish businessman. The case goes cold until clues turn up - in the form of a novel published by an anguished Polish intellectual. This is one of those "you'd-never-believe- it-if-it- weren't-true" stories.

- Dead Man's Float (from New York magazine) was a story with which I was already familiar. CNBC financial commentator Seth Tobias was found dead in his swimming pool at his mansion in Florida. Tobias' family alleged that his wife, Phyllis, murdered him and that she was not entitled to Seth's estate. Others, meanwhile, alleged that Seth was involved in cocaine and also led a secret gay life. Reading this story won't make you a better person, but you won't be able to put it down, either.

Unfortunately, this collection also includes some boring stories. I could not wait for "Non-Lethal Force" (which discusses non-lethal weapons) to end. "Mexico's Red Days" (about the violence south of the border) goes nowhere; it is just a series of vignettes. Many of the other stories are not bad, but they did not excite me, either.

In the end, the 2009 edition of Best American Crime Reporting is a mixed bag. I would not invest any money in the book, but it is worth borrowing from the library.

I love, love, LOVE the Best American true crime series. I'm a huge true crime fan, and this is the best of the best. I started reading the crime series back in 2004 and have since read every year's collection. However, even if you're not into true crime, I definitely think the writing is good enough that you would still enjoy a lot. Furthermore, if you're interested in true crime but don't know where to start, this is a good place to start. (I'd also recommend that you check out In Cold Blood, Helter Skelter, The Executioner's Song, and Fatal Vision if you want some good true crime writing).

The series always includes a wide variety of crimes, and 2009's stories are true to form. From articles about death row inmates to identity thieves to corpse mutilation for profit, the book explores many different facets of crime and punishment. The Best American series always features a few stories that "humanize" a criminal and really probes deeper than sensationalistic crime reporting. Personally, that's what I enjoy. Obviously, some criminals are not as sympathetic due to their cruelty and/or callousness, but black and white thinking is usually an obstacle to interesting writing (especially about criminals). For example, one of the 2009 stories was about a teenager who takes a gun to a mall, kills several bystanders, and then himself. The story could have been superficial, but it actually is a compassionate but honest portrayal of what led this young man to such a traumatic end.

I have enjoyed this crime reporting/writing series since it began in 2002. All of the volumes of this series have excellent reporting. I was excited when this new volume came out, and it has proven to be one of the best in the series.

I will give you a snyopsis of the standout tales (although all of them are good):

"American Murder Mystery" Hannah Rosen writes about the decline of the ghetto, which is unfortunately correlated with a rise in crime in the suburbs, harrowing and not to be missed.

"Zankou Chicken Murders" Mark Arax writes about a fast food chicken chain whose family is torn apart by the murder of two family members by another family member. Food and fast times abound.

"The Day Kennedy Died" : a fascinating tale by Michael J. Mooney which is an account of a speech by an elderly Doctor to medical students on the day he was one of the attending physicians in Dallas for JFK. Ironically the same Doctor also worked on Oswald.

"The Fabulous Fraudulent Life of Jocelyn and Ed," which is by Sabrina Rubin Erdeley, is the story of love, glamour lies and identity theft.

"Everyone Will Remember me as Some Kind of MOnster" by Mark Boal is about the forgettable crime of a sick youngster, who thought he would be immortalized by his killing spree in a shopping mall, only to be forgotten about a week later.

"True Crime" by David Grann (an excellent writer, I reviewed his "The Lost city of Z" some time ago) about a cold case in Poland that is solved with incredible detective work.

Again, all of the stories are wonderful, and you will find yourself reading this book until 2 am and wanting more. Shame on the editors for not having this series come out twice a year! There could be "Best American Crime Reporting" Vol 1 in the Spring, and Vol 2 could come out in the Fall.

I am somewhat of a true crime aficionado, and when I read my first in this book series, I was hooked! They are all great books, and I highly recommend them for anyone who enjoys true crime.

I am new to this title series. Just happened to see this 2009 edition when I visited my local independent bookstore on a mission to keep them in business. The magazines from which these stories were selected were intriguing, so I paid full price and the book went home with me. It claimed to cover a range of crimes, not just violent crimes, which made it that much more appealing.

THESE 3 STORIES ARE EXCELLENT: American Murder Mystery. Stop, Thief! and The Zankou Chicken Murders. Amazing for different reasons, these 3 make the book worth the price. Particularly American Murder Mystery, which likely helped explain why San Francisco has significantly more crime and is less safe than it was ten years ago. Though not mentioned in the story, San Francisco followed the paths taken by Memphis and other cities portrayed in American Murder Mystery - and ended up in the same place.

On that basis, I wanted to give this volume 5 stars. I really wanted to. But it seemed to me that the editors could have located crime stories of similar caliber for the other 12 stories. Why they didn't is an Editing Mystery, no doubt. Perhaps there were just so few crime reporting stories anywhere, or in 2009, that it just wasn't feasible. Still, why not just admit that fact and select a slightly different path for 2009? Don't try to cram in less worthy stories to get to a 300 page book.

The rest of the stories were either mediocre/difficult to embrace (True Crime and Mexico Red Days), boring (Non-Lethal Force and Body Snatchers) or dissatisfying due to the author's interpretations or spin (The Color of Blood, Everyone Will Remember Me as Some Sort of Monster and Dead Man's Float).

But the real turn-off, and the reason this book got only two stars, was the editorial decision to present a "Coda" at the end of each story. These Codas were intended, I believe, to provide the author with a mechanism for updating the crime story to the present, particularly since the eligible stories were originally published in 2008. More than 1 year had sometimes elapsed from the original publication date, and it stands to reason that new evidence or story lines had occurred during that intervening period. Unfortunately, these Codas detracted from the overall tone of the book. In large part, they were not "crime reporting" in nature and, more often than not, the author was whining that the subjects were no longer speaking to them after publication of the story. One can only infer that these authors had been so obsessed with getting the story that they treated these humans - the survivors/victims - as fair game. One senses that the reason an author felt righteously justified in publishing the story is solely because these victims were normal folk - not golf celebrities or presidents - and therefore it is okay for the lives of normal folk to be destroyed by the press. Or for confidences to be betrayed. In the interest of crime reporting, of course.