It's become a seasonal event for me: the Fall purchase and reading of the new volume of The Best American Crime Reporting 2009. The book--edited by Jeffrey Toobin, with series editors Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook--is published each year by Ecco (an imprint of HarperCollins). And each year it's one of the most eagerly anticipated purchases around the Innocent Bystander compound.
Collecting the very best of true crime articles from around the country (mainly from magazines, but there's one lone alt newspaper included, OC Weekly), this treasure trove of fascinating tales is great this year. Although I had read two of the stories before (Mark Arax's "The Zankou Chicken Murders" from Los Angeles magazine, and Stephen Rodrick's "Dead Man's Float" from New York magazine), I eagerly re-read them. Both stories are excellent tales of family life gone wrong--Zankou about the killing of a mother and sister by their brother, Dead Man about a husband/big-time hedge fund investor dying under mysterious circumstances. Other stories include one of the attending physicians present when President John F. Kennedy was brought into Parkland Hospital in Dallas on that fateful day in November 1963; the rise of Somali gangs in--of all places--Minneapolis and St. Paul; a big heist in England, pulled off by a UFC mixed martial arts fighter; the horrifying tale of body snatching in both Philadelphia and New York City, where unscrupulous funeral directors sold bodies scheduled for cremation that were scavenged into parts and sold; the sad skinny teenager who took 8 lives in a mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska; and many more.
Overall, this is the best compendium in years. I've been reading them since 2006, (the series has been published since 2002), and while each year has been good, this year is really excellent. If you're at all interested in the true crime genre, this is a great yearly book to check out.
Woa, great, I just ordered it. I am collecting books about true crime since years! Thanks a lot, Gary!
Posted by: Pam | October 01, 2009 at 10:28 AM