Title: The Best American Crime Writing 2005
Author: Otto Penzler (editor), Thomas H. Cook (editor)
Rating: 
4.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 0060815515
Pages: 384
Keywords: non-fiction, crime
Reading period: 9-16 December, 2007
Female sex slaves, Ukrainian oligarchs, an obsessive silver thief,
white-collar criminals facing jail time, virus writers,
self-destructive surgeons, and the Madrid bombers,
are just some of the stories in this collection
of non-fiction writing on crime and criminals,
published in various magazines in 2005.
The book is bracketed by two pieces by James Ellroy.
In the foreword, he argues that
"true-crime writing offers a less kineticized and
more sobering set of thrills [than crime fiction]—chiefly
couched in human revelation".
In the concluding essay, he pays homage to Joseph Wambaugh,
whose writing inspired him to become a writer himself.
The other pieces are gripping articles,
ranging from the picayune—human trackers following a tiny
fraction of the illegal immigrants crossing a remote stretch
of the Rio Grande—to billion-dollar Ponzi schemes.
Recommended.