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Great articles, every Saturday.

Tags

Crime

Fiction

Fiction Pick of the Week: "Good Boy"

Hustling and sexual identity in Lagos.

Eloghosa Osunde Paris Review Oct 2020 20min Permalink

Crime Politics

Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration, and Me

A former inmate on justice, violence, and jail time.

Reginald Dwayne Betts New York Times Magazine Oct 2020 20min Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Incredible Story of the Collar Bomb Heist

In 2003, a man robbed a bank with a bomb around his neck. It exploded shortly thereafter, taking his life and leaving authorities to try to figure out who had put it there.

Rich Schapiro Wired Dec 2010 20min Permalink

Crime World

An American Drug Lord in Acapulco

How a middle-class jock from a Texas border town became La Barbie, one of the most ruthless and feared cartel leaders in Mexico.

Mary Cuddehe, Vanessa Grigoriadis Rolling Stone Sep 2011 25min Permalink

Crime

Heartbreaker

A prolific con artist, decades of grift, and a trail of shattered relationships.

Katherine Laidlaw Toronto Life Sep 2020 25min Permalink

Crime

The Swedish Serial Killer Who Never Was

Thomas Quick confessed to more than 30 murders. But the man also known as Sture Bergwall may not have committed any of them.

Elizabeth Day The Observer Oct 2012 20min Permalink

Crime

The Suspects Wore Louboutins

The motley gang of L.A. teens that cat-burgled celebrities, sometimes repeatedly, in search of designer clothes, jewelry, and something to do. The story that became The Bling Ring.

Nancy Jo Sales Vanity Fair Mar 2010 20min Permalink

Fiction

Fiction Pick of the Week: "Always the Harvest"

A futuristic world of scavenging and anatomical harvesting.

Yoon Ha Lee Lightspeed Magazine Apr 2020 30min Permalink

Best Article

A Hospital’s Deadly Choice

Katrina’s floodwaters had knocked out the power. Evacuation of the sickest patients seemed impossible. So the doctors at Memorial did what they thought was right, even if they knew it was a crime.

Sheri Fink New York Times Magazine Aug 2009 55min Permalink

Best Article Crime

Trial By Fire

The arson case that may have led Texas to execute an innocent man.

David Grann New Yorker Sep 2009 1h5min Permalink

Crime

The Rise and Fall of the Cincinnati Boner King

A jailhouse interview with Steve Washak, who made millions selling “natural male enhancement” pills.

Amy Wallace GQ Sep 2009 20min Permalink

Crime History

The Dognapping of the Century

When a ring of thieves steals a poet’s beloved dog, one of the world’s most famous women must break her long domestic oppression and discover herself in the process.

Olivia Rutigliano Truly*Adventurous Jan 2020 30min Permalink

Best Article

The Ballad of Richard Jewell

How the media and law enforcement fingered the wrong man for the 1996 Olympic Park bombing.

Read more

The article that inspired the film.

Marie Brenner Vanity Fair Feb 1997 1h15min Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Chameleon

The many lives of imposter Frédéric Bourdin.

David Grann New Yorker Aug 2008 45min Permalink

Best Article Crime

Midnight in the Garden of East Texas

A charming assistant funeral home director named Bernie Tiede murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town's sympathy as his case goes to trial. The story that became Richard Linklater's Bernie.

Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly Jan 1998 20min Permalink

Crime Science

The Final Five Percent

When a brain injury leads to a personality change and then prison time, a neuroscientist wonders if his brother could have been saved.

Tim Requarth Longreads Oct 2019 Permalink

Business Crime

The Perfect Dealer

Customer feedback on the New York City coke dealing industry.

Elizabeth Spiers Gawker Jan 2003 10min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Golden Bough

In 1997, a logger-turned-activist named Grant Hadwin cut down a very special tree. Then he bought a kayak and disappeared.

John Vaillant New Yorker Nov 2002 25min Permalink

Guns 'R Us

A report from Sprague’s Sports, a firearms emporium in Yuma, Arizona.

Jeanne Marie Laskas GQ Sep 2012 25min Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob

Peggy Jo Tallas spent most of her adult life doing two things: taking care of her ailing mother and robbing bank after bank dressed as a pudgy, bearded cowboy.

Read more

More: The Longform Guide to Bank Heists

Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly Nov 2005 35min Permalink

Ana Kriégel Murder Trial: The Complete Story

In May 2018, schoolgirl Ana Kriégel was lured from her home, brought to an abandoned house, and murdered. A year later two 14-year-old boys were found guilty of her killing, becoming the youngest people in the history of Ireland to be convicted of murder.

Conor Gallagher The Irish Times Jun 2019 1h10min Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Single-Mom Murder

She moved to Cape Cod to escape the glitzy Manhattan world she born into. The only witness to her murder was her 2-year-old daughter. Everyone she knew, it seemed, was a suspect.

Vanessa Grigoriadis New York Feb 2002 25min Permalink

Best Article Crime Media

Covering the Cops

A profile of Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald during its heyday.

Calvin Trillin New Yorker Feb 1986 30min Permalink

Business Crime

Secrets of the Tax-Prep Business

How pop-up tax preparers make billions off the poor.

Gary Rivlin Mother Jones Mar 2011 15min Permalink

Best Article Crime World

A Murder Foretold

Rodrigo Rosenberg, a highly respected corporate attorney in Guatemala, began, in the spring of 2009, to prophesy his own murder. The unraveling of a political conspiracy.

David Grann New Yorker Jan 2012 55min Permalink

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