The Best American Crime

Thieves, liars, killers, and conspirators—it's a criminal world out there, and someone has got to write about it.

Thieves, liars, killers, and conspirators—it's a criminal world out there, and someone has got to write about it. An eclectic collection of the year's best reportage, The Best American Crime Reporting 2007 brings together the murderers and muscle men, the masterminds, and the mysteries and missteps that make for brilliant stories, told by the aces of the true crime genre…

This is a solid and diverse collection of true-crime writing, if devoid of the memorable entries that marked the 2004 edition. The 16 pieces—some by familiar names such as noir master Ellroy, Freakonomics coauthor Stephen J. Dubner and terrorism expert Lawrence Wright—span a wider range of criminal activities, however, from an anatomy of bar fights (perhaps the slightest of the pieces) to the evolving nature of al-Qaeda as evidenced by the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings. Three essays stand out in particular for conveying noteworthy aspects of the criminal mind in a short format.