Anthology by Thomas H Cook and Otto Penzler This year's worth of the most powerful, the most startling, the smartest and most astute, in short, the best crime journalism. Scouring hundreds of publications, Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook have created a remarkable compilation containing the best examples of the most current and vibrant of our literary traditions: crime reporting. Included in this volume are Maximillian Potter's "The Body Farm" from GQ, a portrait of Murray Marks, who collects dead bodies and strews them around two acres of the University of Tennessee campus to study their decomposition in order to help solve crime; Jay Kirk's "My Undertaker, My Pimp," from Harper's, in which...

Nathan Stein-once an attractive, cultured lawyer-has slipped into the dark world of his powerful father's corrupt practice. After one too many shady deals, he finds himself alone, sick in body and spirit. His career and life are careening out of control, and he's about to become the prime suspect in the murder of a young woman. As we follow him over a long day and night, Nathan encounters the friends, lovers, and family members he has betrayed. Lurching toward redemption, he must answer for his actions. Is he a murderer or the victim of an elaborate frame-up? Or do his sins go even deeper? A tale of chilling suspense that belies the elegance of its prose, Blood Acre is a compelling story of...

The 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers the year's most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, including Peter Landesman's article about female sex slaves (the most requested and widely read New York Times story of 2004), a piece from The New Yorker by Stephen J. Dubner (the coauthor of Freakanomics) about a high-society silver thief, and an extraordinarily memorable "ode to bar fights" written by Jonathan Miles for Men's Journal after he punched an editor at a staff party. But this year's edition includes a bonus – an original essay by James Ellroy detailing his fascination with Joseph Wambaugh and how it fed his obsession with crime – even to...