True Story - Tapa dura

'Its a gripping tale, plainly told but artfully constructed.....' (Blake Morrison Guardian 2005-05-14)

'True Story is all those things its publishers hope the more learned critics will say it is - an absorbing examination of human frailty, the nature of truth and the power of pride. That sort of thing. It is also a stonking good read... 250 pages of extraordinary journalism only an American in manic pursuit of a Pulitzer could have produced... Awesome energy and wry reverence for detail, [the results] are triumphant' (Giles Whittell Times 2005-05-14)

'The two stories are well told. Finkel has learned his trade, organising his material with immense care and writing in the kind of stripped, unadorned prose beloved by American editors... There will be few readers who do not finish this book' (Brian Appleyard Sunday Times 2005-05-15)

A thrilling, unforgettable book...Wonderful (Spectator)

A fine, beautifully choreographed addition to the macabre three-legged race linking murderers with writers...Horribly readable (Mail on Sunday)

Michael Finkel was a top New York Times Magazine journalist publicly fired and disgraced for making up a composite character for a big investigative news piece about Africa. This book is about how this brilliant, hardliving, high achieving journalist found himself at that point in his life; but in parallel it's also about Christian Longo, a man accused of the multiple murder of his own wife and 3 children (their bodies were found in Oregon waterways, the largest and the smallest in suitcases), who then passed himself off as Michael Finkel, NY journalist, while on the run in Mexico. These two weird stories come together as Finkel in turn becomes fascinated (obsessed, even) with Longo the accused murderer, who while in prison would talk only to Finkel. Who is using whom-? It's all about truth and lies, and where journalistic truth deviates from reality; and about lives that take a wrong turning. It's very well written, disturbing in many ways and utterly gripping. There is an acknowledged moral ambiguity about the whole venture which makes it problematic but even more interesting- And in April 2003 Longo, who had pleaded guilty only to 2 counts of murder, was sentenced to death for all 4. Finkel visited and talked to him throughout the trial. (2004-06-24)