Some of these people engage in some truly deplorable activities, see the El Chapo piece, and Keefe's attempt to paint their portraits without having ever spoken to them makes psychological profiles by proxy (he calls them 'write-arounds'). I mean, it'd be one thing if the writing alone was particularly good, but the subjects that Keefe has chosen are intoxicatingly compelling. All of the above is done with a sharp research and an economy of language that had me marvelling at how efficiently Keefe is able to lay out the particulars of a story. Over twelve stories, previously published in the New Yorker, Keefe took me through tales of arms dealers, gangsters, insider trading, reality TV, lawyers who defend clients facing the death penalty, and a rousing look at Anthony Bourdain’s legacy. Lemme tell you folks, I've just been reading the wrong types of nonfiction.

So, finally, I decided to give the much-lauded Patrick Radden Keefe's Rogues a read after an NPR review touted it as the perfect sampler of Keefe's style. I largely see nonfiction books as bitter green vegetables on my plate: good for me, even if I don't enjoy them. I'll pick up a book that's won an award or has been recommended by a friend, and I'll poke my way through it over weeks or months. Here's how I go about reading nonfiction. The appearance of his byline in The New Yorker is always an event, and collected here for the first time readers can see his work forms an always enthralling but deeply human portrait of criminals and rascals, as well as those who stand up against them.

Keefe brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines whether a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the 'worst of the worst,' among other bravura works of literary journalism.

As Keefe says in his preface, 'They reflect on some of my abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.' Rogues brings together a dozen of his most celebrated articles from The New Yorker. Patrick Radden Keefe has garnered prizes ranging from the National Magazine Award to the Orwell Prize to the National Book Critics Circle Award for his meticulously reported, hypnotically engaging work on the many ways people behave badly. From the prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, twelve enthralling stories of skulduggery and intrigue by one of the most decorated journalists of our time.

Rogues patrick radden