Dan Mallory, who writes under the name A. J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his debut thriller, The Woman in the Window. His life contains even stranger twists.

A man named Tristan Beaudette was killed while camping in Malibu Creek State Park with his two young daughters. For residents, it became a true crime sensation. But for his family, it was something very different.

He was a convicted felon who found a niche in Seattle’s construction boom. As the region’s fortunes rose and fell—and rose again—so did his. Then a fatal boating accident came for Michael Powers’s fairy-tale ending.

Patrick Bryne’s tenure at Overstock.com was already on the rocks, due to an all in bet on blockchain technology, before he admitted that he had an affair with the Russian operative Maria Butina.

One teammate made tennis his whole life. The other had a grandfather whose company invented Hot Pockets. Guess which one went to Georgetown as a Division I recruit.

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.

An Eastern Airlines shuttle to Boston 50 years ago started out routine. It ended up changing how America flies.

How a fearsome, fast-talking union boss became a leading figure in cannabis legalization while shaking down the very people he was supposed to be helping.

Production was shut down three times, the stars often clashed, and studio executives were baffled. Here’s how a difficult shoot led to an Oscar-winning masterpiece.

“Peril is generational for black people in America—and incarceration is our current mechanism for ensuring that the peril continues.”

How do you write about Hollywood’s most self-referential screenwriter at a destabilizing moment in history? It takes more than one draft.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League did everything it could to keep lesbians off the diamond. Seventy-five years later, its gay stars are finally opening up.

In a district where parents are epidemiologists and health policy experts, the meltdown happened one Zoom meeting at a time

The psychologist taught us that what we remember is not fixed, but her work testifying for defendants like Harvey Weinstein collides with our traumatized moment.

Should humans try harder to protect even wild creatures from predators and disease? Should we care whether they live good lives? Some philosophers and scientists have an unorthodox answer.

Rédoine Faïd loved the movies, and his greatest crimes were laced with tributes: to Point Break, Heat, and Reservoir Dogs. When he landed in a maximum-security prison, cinema provided inspiration once again.

For centuries, dowsers have claimed the ability to find groundwater, precious metals, and other quarry using divining rods and an uncanny intuition. Is it the real deal or woo-woo?

When a gossip rag went after the CEO, he retaliated with the brutal, brilliant efficiency he used to build his business empire.

Thirty years ago, the biggest celebrities on earth opened a chain restaurant. For a few years, it was the hottest ticket in town. Then it went bankrupt. Twice.

It seemed like an easy crime to stop: protected Indonesian rainforest, cut for coffee farms. But a globalized economy can undermine even the best-laid plans.

Fifty years ago, The Last Picture Show changed the way the world saw small-town Texas and, in turn, the way the small town saw itself

“When it comes down to it, really, genes don’t make you who you are. Gene expression does. And gene expression varies depending on the life you live.”

Despite its association with piracy, BitTorrent is a company in its own right, and one desperate to hit upon a way to monetize its revolutionary file transfer technology.

How Derrick Hamilton went from wrongfully convicted to legal scholar to free.

Life at Marvel Comics in the mid-1960s.

An excerpt from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.