An exemplary investigation, exactly as the author describes it: “a true-crime story for the post-truth era.”
An unfortunate young man goes from murder victim to QAnon icon.
Seth Rich was a junior staffer with the Democratic National Committee’s “team of brainy lawyers and wonky data analysts devoted to protecting and expanding the right to vote.” In July 2016, someone shot him twice in the back, presumably in the course of a robbery. Within days, writes ProPublica investigative reporter, conspiracy theories began to pop up on the internet. At first, suspicions that Rich died for “knowing too much” came from Bernie Sanders supporters. When the WikiLeaks dump of stolen DNC documents revealed that the organization was working against Sanders, the theory took a sadly predictable turn: Hillary Clinton had ordered Rich’s killing. Soon the #IAmSethRich meme took a hard right turn. When Donald Trump entered the White House, he “represented a new style of conspiracy theorist. Unlike those of Alex Jones or the Birchers, his theories didn’t attempt to explain the world. They didn’t connect any dots or try to make sense of seemingly disparate events.” The buzz around Rich’s death intensified, soon to fall down the rabbit hole of the Trump internet cult, the Pizzagate set, and, far worse, Fox News, with Laura Ingraham decrying the “aggressive lack of curiosity” of the mainstream media in the case and Sean Hannity acting as a one-man amplifier of a matter that quickly became QAnon gospel. All ignored the plea of Rich’s parents: “Stop politicizing our son’s murder.” Kroll singles out Fox as the worst offender, but he doesn’t spare Julian Assange, either, for missing an “opportunity to issue a clarification that could provide a semblance of solace and resolution for a grieving family.” Lawsuits were filed, judgments rendered, apologies and retractions issued—but still, as the author writes in this thoroughgoing, riveting narrative, the lies continue to this day.
An exemplary investigation, exactly as the author describes it: “a true-crime story for the post-truth era.”Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5417-5114-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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