Kevin Flynn - The New York Times Book of Crime: More Than 166 Years of Covering the Beat

By RICHARD PRICE

The pleasures to be had in reading this book are legion.

Theres the consistent quality of the reportage, the rich yet precise presentations of backstory and the overall handsomeness of the prose. Theres the revisiting of historical events unfolding in real time, the ramifications of a singular act often unknown (except to the reader, who feels like a reverse-oracle predicting the past) for weeks, months and even years to come. The early days speculations on looming verdicts, the progress of manhunts, the (sometimes empty) vows of law enforcement to bring the perps to heel, the prosecutorial and defense team strategies that will succeed or fail. The unfolding of criminal deedsthe Enron and Madoff trials; the assassinations of Lincoln, of JFK, of Malcolm X; the massacres at Columbine, at Sandy Hook and in Charlestonthat still sear the national psyche. The scramble to make immediate sense of fresh events, (Heir to Austrias Throne Is Slain by Bosnian Youth) that will end up reshaping the world map.

Ive always assumed that the best crime reportingsports reporting, toowas to be found in the tabloids, but after inhaling the contents of this anthology, which cover more than a century and a half of criminal mayhem as filed with The New York Times, the shingles have fallen from my eyes. Lurid writing can overwhelm lurid deeds. Excitable adjectives, judgmental prose and the egging on of public outrage can often obscure rather than illuminate the facts at the core.

In most of the articles contained herein, the thoroughness of the research combined with the implacableness of the tone, especially when flying in the face of a popular taboo or sentiment of the times, often reads like a fortress of probity.

A 1926 article debunks the eras hysteria over marijuana by carefully extrapolating the results of an investigation into the physiological and psychological impact of smoking marijuana on a number of subjects, soberly concluding: The influence of the drug when used for smoking is uncertain and appears to be have been greatly exaggerated. There is no evidence that [marijuana] is a habit-forming drug in the sense of the term as applied to alcohol, opium, cocaine or that it has any appreciable deleterious effect on the individuals using it. I repeat: 1926.

An even earlier investigative piece written in 1852 regards the systematic use of capital punishment as meted out by the guards at Sing Sing prison. The report gathers physicians and physiologists to refute the prison staffs claims that the punishments (including an hours-long form of water torture) were carefully monitored, when in fact, due to either unchecked sadism or sheer ignorance regarding the limits of human endurance, they often ended in either death or madness.

Occasionally, the stoniness of the prose can feel chillingly blunt given the subject at hand. The unnamed writer covering the aftermath of Lincolns assassination in 1865, reports: The pistol ball entered the back of the presidents head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal. The president has been insensible ever since it was inflicted, and is now dying.

At other times, the measured tone and objective formalism of the writing, when set against the grain of an outrage, can powerfully serve to isolate and heighten the darkness of the deed. At first glance, John N. Pophams atmospheric description of the Sumner, Mississippi, courtroom during jury selection for the trial of Emmett Tills murderers in 1955 reads like a rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird; the judge in shirtsleeves, the defendants and rubberneckers free to smoke up a storm, bailiffs passing out cups of ice water to their friends in the sweltering pews, the jarring intimacy between the state-appointed prosecutor and the prospective jurors during voir dire: He seemed to be familiar with everyones personal habits and family background, even to the nicknames they had for friends who might be interested in the outcome of the trial. And last, but not least, the defendants children played around the knees of their fathers and occasionally ran up and down the corridors of the courtroom.

This effortless sketch of southern comfort has become a trope of countless Hollywood legal dramas, from Inherit the Wind to My Cousin Vinny, yet in this soon-to-be-infamous courtroom, the barely mentioned true crime that has brought this assembly togetherthe torturing and murder of a 14-year-old African American boy for allegedly whistling at a white womaninfuses every folksy detail with an aftertaste of revulsion. On the other hand, Pophams description of the courthouse hangers-on as several hundred white persons who strongly support a strict pattern of racial segregation seems, pardon the oxymoron, a feat of excessive understatement.

At the other end of tone spectrum, and maybe the biggest revelation of all, is the discovery that certain crimesespecially those found in the heists and capers chapterdemand a punchier, almost sporty, narrative. Who didnt root for Willie Sutton? How could you not like a jewel thief named Murph the Surf? The articles can read like a cross between a tense noir thriller and a riff on Jimmy Breslins The Gang That Couldnt Shoot Straight.

In the report on the 1965 recovery (from a bus terminal locker in Miami) of the Star of India diamond (563.35 carats) and eight other eye-popping jewels stolen by the aforementioned Murph and two other part-time beach bums, the Florida paparazzi chasing three NYPD detectives, Assistant District Attorney Maurice Nadjari and a handcuffed perp, Allan Kuhn, seem more villainous than the bad guys, some of them hiding in bushes carrying walkie-talkies and pulling ignition wires on cars the authorities had rented so they would not start.