The most horrifying story about what money can buy that you will ever read.
The surreal and sordid saga of Jeffrey Epstein, from Brooklyn boyhood to Manhattan jailhouse death.
In a narrative as gripping as the documentary series Filthy Rich—and that adds previously unreported details to the well-known story—Levine, whose previous book exposed Donald Trump’s predatory nature, offers an unblinking account of how the world's most flagrant pedophile made his money—and what he did with it. "It would be a conservative estimate,” writes the author, “to say that since the 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein spent more than $35 million related to his abuse of women and girls." Levine is to be commended for so thoroughly and indelibly laying out the truth about the scores of victims as well as Epstein’s fellow perpetrators. Numerous faces from both sides are included in a riveting 16-page insert that begins with Epstein's high school yearbook photo and ends with the “unmarked stone crypt believed to be Epstein’s final resting place.” Among the many people who won’t like this damning book are Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton. While nothing can redress the lifelong damage suffered by Epstein’s victims, it is essential that their stories be told with understanding and without prurience, as Levine does here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a long section covering Epstein's imprisonment and death adds new details but does not preclude the possibility that he was murdered. Some readers may wish for more psychological analysis: Why and how did he turn into a sociopath so obsessed with underage girls that he went through his entire adulthood without a normal romantic relationship and never came anywhere close to marrying or having a family? However, that minor shortcoming doesn’t detract from the power of the story—or the appalling revelations: “Beginning around 2001, Epstein started confiding to acquaintances that he wanted to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch.”
The most horrifying story about what money can buy that you will ever read.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-23718-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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