Maleantes: Historias reales de estafadores, asesinos, rebeldes e impostores (Spanish Edition) by Patrick Radden Keefe

Maleantes: Historias reales de estafadores, asesinos, rebeldes e impostores (Spanish Edition) Reviews

• 
  Jaidee

  5 "consistently superb, insightful and fascinating" stars !!!
  
  So I do not think I could have enjoyed a book more !
  
  Mr. Keefe has curated twelve of his articles into this collection I could not have been a more satisfied reader.
  
  A warm thank you to Peter B. whose review prompted me to shortlist this collection.
  
  Forget getting your Dad a baseball cap, your hubby a sweater and your brother a bottle of bourbon. Get the most important dudes in your life this book for Father's day. It is simply off the charts excellent. My sweetheart and two of my guy friends will be getting a copy either for Father's Day or upcoming birthday....hid this because my boyfriend would never read a spoiler alert lol
  
  Mr. Keefe writes with a discerning simplicity and clarity that I adore in long form journalism. He is intelligent and probing and presents fairly neutral viewpoints on this most interesting assortment of characters which are all rogues in their very own way. He has a healthy dose of skepticism and does not provide much interpretation to allow the reader to reflect on their own thoughts and viewpoints. I was completely immersed in each and every article and quite frankly could read this forever and ever....
  
  The collection is full of 4, 4.5 and 5 star reads that I rounded up to 5 because I was amazed that there was not a dud in the bunch. I will list the article , my rating and brief comment on content.
  
  1. The Jefferson Bottles ....4 stars... wine forgeries...rich dudes... and Thomas Jefferson !
  
  2. Crime Family...4.5 stars...a serial killer and his less evil sisters duke it out in criminal court in Holland...who's zooming who ?
  
  3. The Avenger...4.5 stars... the brother of one of the Lockerbie plane crash victims and his obsessive search for the criminals and bomb maker...poignant and detailed
  
  4. The Empire of Edge...4 stars....denials and gradients of greed in insider trading
  
  5. A Loaded Gun...4.5 stars...an engaging and sharp exploration of the life of Amy Bishop and her possible motivations for the multiple murders she committed at her college...absolute riveting and tragic
  
  6. The Hunt for El Chapo...4 stars...the hunt, capture and escape of a Mexican drug lord
  
  7. Winning...4.5 stars...a fascinating look at the creator of Survivor and the Apprentice and the voting in of Donald the Orange.
  
  8. Swiss Bank Heist...4.5 stars... is the whistle blower a heroic sociopath and is Switzerland truly neutral ?
  
  9. The Prince of Marbella..4 stars...the framing and capture of an international arms dealer
  
  10. The Worst of the Worst...5 stars...an examination of Judy Clarke...the defense lawyer of the Boston Bomber...this one riled me up so much with tears and outrage...can justice ever truly be served
  
  11. Buried Secrets...5 stars...a most fascinating tale of Iron Ore in Guinea and all the corrupt sharks wanting a piece....very anxiety provoking
  
  12. Journeyman...5 stars....a beautiful tribute to Anthony Bourdain...my heart ached and I reminisced on all the many episodes of Parts Unknown that I relished...rest in peace....
  
  Believe me...the men in your life will thank you for this gift on Father's Day !
  
  
• 
  Olive Fellows (abookolive)

  3.5 stars. I was completely absorbed by some of these pieces, others were a bit of a slog.
  
  
  Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
  
  
• 
  Diane S ☔

  Literary journalism at its finest and Keefe is certainly the perfect writer to bring to life some of these, many unheard of, incidents/people to our attention. I had three favorites, the hunt for and the capture of the notorious drug kingpin, El Capo. Do you know that he had 90 tunnels dug into the United States, many which were air-conditioned. A wall wouldn't have helped here. A chilling expose.
  
  Mark Burnett and the making of the Apprentice and the rebranding of Donald Trump. I'm sure many are with me in the wishing that this was one genie we could put back in the bottle. Wonder if Burnett can sleep at night?
  
  The last story was the life of Bourdain. A bittersweet look at the man and his career.
  
  All included in this book is well done and oh so interesting.
• 
  Matt Quann

  Here's how I go about reading nonfiction.
  
  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. I largely see nonfiction books as bitter green vegetables on my plate: good for me, even if I don't enjoy them. 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.
  
  Lemme tell you folks, I've just been reading the wrong types of nonfiction.
  
  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. 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.
  
  I mean, it'd be one thing if the writing alone was particularly good, but the subjects that Keefe has chosen are intoxicatingly compelling. 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"). It's fascinating how well he's able to reconcile two differing opinions from sources with stone cold evidence or a pattern of behaviour he's established in his reporting.
  
  Altogether, a banging set of stories that have introduced me to an entirely new avenue of nonfiction to pursue: anything reported by Patrick Radden Keefe.
• 
  Krista

  These are wild tales, but they’re all true, each scrupulously fact-checked by my brilliant colleagues at The New Yorker. Together, I hope that they illuminate something about crime and punishment, the slipperiness of situational ethics, the choices we make as we move through this world, and the stories we tell ourselves and others about those choices.

  
  After finishing
  Rogues, I find myself immediately going back and questioning the title. A “rogue” is defined as “a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel. A playfully mischievous person; scamp”, and honestly, that language doesn’t feel adequate to capture the people Patrick Radden Keefe has written about here. Even the subtitle “True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks” barely covers the range of “roguery” that goes from someone like the druglord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán (reputed to have ordered the murders of tens of thousands of people) to Anthony Bourdain (decidedly more scamp than scoundrel, he definitely seems out of place in the company of terrorists, murderers, and arms dealers.) In twelve long articles that have formerly been published in The New Yorker, Keefe shines as an investigative journalist who gets to the bottom of every story, and whether he’s writing about criminals, their victims, or his own reaction to a situation, he has a real knack for emphasising the humanity behind the headlines. Overall — and this isn’t Keefe’s fault — this collection made me a little depressed: There are so many bad people out there, hurting other people in the pursuit of money (which of course I already knew), and governments supporting the rogues if it suits their mandates (which of course I already knew), and victims struggling, fruitlessly, to find justice (which of course I already knew) that reading this all at once felt a little overwhelming. Consistently well-written and globe-trottingly fascinating, Rogues should be a satisfying followup for readers of Keefe’s recent bestsellers. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
  
  Of the twelve entries, these are a few bits that made me go Hmmm for one reason or another.
  
  

  Could Rodenstock have become so proficient at making fake wine that his fakes tasted as good as, or even better than, the real thing? When I asked Parker about the bottle, he hastened to say that even the best wine critics are fallible. Yet he reiterated that the bottle was spectacular. “If that was a fake, he should be a mixer,” Parker said. “It was wonderful.”

  
  In “The Jefferson Bottles” (originally published in 2007), we are introduced to Hardy Rodenstock: a German wine collector who repeatedly uncovered forgotten stashes of rare old wine (including, as per the title, a case of French wine intended for Thomas Jefferson with his name etched on the bottles), which Rodenstock then sold for huge sums at auction. The narrative primarily focuses on American billionaire Bill Koch — avid art and wine collector — who, when he was told that the various wines he had bought that originated with Rodenstock were probably all fakes, embarked on his other great passion: suing the pants off anyone who crossed him. The article traces the investigation into Rodenstock’s sketchy career, explores the world of top tier œnophilia, and encourages us to join Keefe in feeling superior to the kitschy Koch (with his “cowboy room” [Keefe’s quote marks] filled with Remington bronzes and Custer’s firearms) as Keefe joins Koch in a glass of fine wine from the billionaire’s cellar. This is the first article in the collection and I was immediately struck by two things: There is definitely a liberal political slant to Keefe’s writing and there’s a jarring out-of-syncness to reading out-of-date investigative journalism. At the end of each entry, Keefe does update the story and this one ends in part with, “In 2018, Hardy Rodenstock died, at age seventy-six” and Bill Koch continues to pursue his lawsuits “very happily, to this day.”
  
  

  Dornstein ushered me up to the third floor, where two cramped rooms were devoted to Lockerbie. In one room, shelves were lined with books about espionage, aviation, terrorism, and the Middle East. Jumbo binders housed decades of research. In the other room, Dornstein had papered the walls with mug shots of Libyan suspects. Between the two rooms was a large map of Lockerbie, with hundreds of colored pushpins indicating where the bodies had fallen. He showed me a cluster where first-class passengers landed, and another where most of the economy passengers were found. Like the coroner in a police procedural, Dornstein derives such clinical satisfaction from his work that he can narrate the grisliest findings with cheerful detachment. Motioning at a scattering of pushpins some distance from the rest, he said, “They were the youngest, smallest children. If you look at the physics of it, they were carried by the wind.”

  
  In “The Avenger” (originally published 2015), Keefe writes about Ken Dornstein whose older brother David was on Pan Am Flight 103 that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. This was so interesting in the details but had a weird feeling as we follow along with an investigative journalist as he tells the story of an investigative journalist who was looking for answers in his brother’s death (Dornstein would go on to write the book
  The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky and film a three part documentary for Frontline called “My Brother’s Bomber”.) One thread that interested me in particular: The CIA linked the timer on the bomb that was planted on the plane to a Swiss electronics company whose owner doesn’t deny providing timing devices to the Libyan regime over the years, telling Dornstein “Switzerland is neutral, and I’m neutral in this thing.” Keefe reached out to this man and reports: In an email, (Edwin) Bollier told me that any suggestion that he was linked to the destruction of Pan Am 103 is a “despicable accusation” and a “fictional idea.” His email address, which I discovered on his website, is [email protected]. (And even though Dornstein was seeking, and found, bigger fish than Bollier, “rogue” doesn’t feel sufficient to describe even him.)
  
  

  (Mark) Burnett is fluent in the jargon of self-help, and he has published two memoirs, both written with Bill O’Reilly’s ghostwriter, which double as manuals on how to get rich. One of them, titled Jump In! Even if You Don’t Know How to Swim, now reads like an inadvertent metaphor for the Trump presidency. “Don’t waste time on overpreparation,” the book advises. At the 2004 panel, Burnett made it clear that with The Apprentice he was selling an archetype. “Donald is the current-day version of a tycoon,” he said. “Donald will say whatever Donald wants to say. He takes no prisoners. If you’re Donald’s friend, he’ll defend you all day long. If you’re not, he’s going to kill you. And that’s very American. It’s like the guys who built the West.”

  
  In “Winning” from 2019, Keefe tells the story of producer Mark Burnett and his role in raising (and polishing) Donald Trump’s profile. It would seem, from this article, that both Burnett and Trump are rogues. Keefe recalls the 2016 Emmys where Jimmy Kimmel blamed Mark Burnett for Donald Trump’s resurrection, making it clear that Trump would have never successfully run for president had it not been for “the sneaky little crumpet-muncher” Burnett (who declined an interview with the author). In the concluding update for this story, Keefe writes that after Trump lost his bid for reelection, “He retreated to Mar-a-Lago, to plot his comeback. If he doesn’t run for president again, it will almost certainly involve television, and if it involves television, it could very well involve Mark Burnett.”
  
  

  For the next two years, Soiles and a team of agents from the SOD pored over old case files, studying Kasser’s operation. But gathering sufficient evidence of his involvement in various crimes was difficult, and pursuing Kassar for the Achille Lauro charges might be barred, because it would amount to double jeopardy. By early 2006, Soiles and his colleagues had decided that they needed to attempt something radical. Rather than try Kassar for a crime he’d committed in the past, they would use the strong conspiracy laws in the United States to prosecute him for something that he intended to do in the future. They would infiltrate Kassar’s organization and set him up in a sting. Many European countries have “agent provocateur” laws to guard against entrapment, but in an American court it would be difficult for a trafficker with Kassar’s history to protest that he was in no way disposed to clandestine weapons deals.

  
  In “The Prince of Marbella” (originally published in 2010), Keefe tells the story of fabulously successful international arms dealer Monzer Al Kassar. Like Bollier above, who takes no personal responsibility for what anyone does with the timing devices he might sell to bomb makers, Kassar was able to position himself as a mere middleman between arms manufacturers and they who would rather buy their weapons without a papertrail. This wasn’t technically illegal — and Kassar reportedly worked with the American government during the Iran Contra Affair — but the Americans eventually decided to go after him and they set him up in a sting operation. The undercover buyers said that they represented Colombia’s FARC guerrilla forces, and as American Special Forces often teamed with the Colombian government to suppress the rebels, selling to FARC could be interpreted as intending to attack Americans (and based on Kassar saying on tape that he’d be happy for Americans to die in the conflict, he has been serving a sentence at a federal prison in Marion, Illinois since 2009). I have no love for Kassar or other underground arms dealers, but even as the sympathetic Keefe describes the sting, it sounds a bit roguish, too.
  
  

  All told, Bourdain has traveled to nearly a hundred countries and has filmed 248 episodes, each a distinct exploration of the food and culture of a place. The secret ingredient of the show is the when-in-Rome avidity with which he partakes of indigenous custom and cuisine, whether he is pounding vodka before plunging into a frozen river outside St. Petersburg or spearing a fatted swine as the guest of honor at a jungle longhouse in Borneo. Like a great white shark, Bourdain tends to be photographed with his jaws wide open, on the verge of sinking his teeth into some tremulous delicacy.

  
  “Journeyman” from 2017 is an admiring biography of celebrity chef, bestselling author, and gastronomic world-traveller Anthony Bourdain. Other than some early drug abuse, nothing about Bourdain fits into the “true crime” profile of this collection, but I guess plenty of people might have described him as roguish. This was a hard one to read, knowing that this oversized personality would eventually take his own life, and it was definitely uncomfortable to read, “Bourdain often thinks about dying; more than once, he told me that if he got ‘a bad chest x-ray’, he would happily renew his acquaintance with heroin.” This is a strong article, an interesting read, but it did feel out of place here.
  
  In addition to the above rogues, we meet mass workplace shooter Amy Bishop; banker Hervé Falciani, who leaked the details of thousands of HSBC’s secret, tax-evading accountholders (“In France, Falciani looked like a whistle-blower; in Switzerland, he looked like a thief”); Mexican druglord “El Chapo” (and as this article was mostly about the first great hunt for Guzmán, it was awkward for it to end with “they caught him but he escaped and was later caught again” and then have a parenthetical update that said “and he escaped again and was caught again”; jarring way to update the out-of-date); there is insider trading, the modern-day looting of African resources, a Dutch gangster (as well as the abetting family who eventually turned on him); and celebrated defense attourney Judy Clarke — who represents “the worst of the worst” in capital crime cases — and follow along on her failure to save Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnev from the death penalty. (In July 2020, the death penalty was overturned, but in March of 2022, “the court voted to reinstate it”.)
  
  Although interesting and probing, Keefe is definitely not impartial in his storytelling. When billionaire George Soros is working behind the scenes on the world stage, he’s doing good; when billionaire Bill Koch says he wants to collect rare wines and never drink them (because collecting is the point), he’s a bit of a clown; when Israeli billionaire investor Beny Steinmetz flips a mining contract (in what he calls a standard practise), he’s a criminal (and by Keefe’s account, he probably is; Steinmetz is currently appealing a conviction for bribery). I did like how Keefe puts himself in the story — I enjoyed travelling the world with him as he follows leads and don’t really mind seeing the people he meets through his eyes — but for anyone expecting journalistic detachment, this is not that. Still a highly interesting collection.
  
• 
  Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤

  Sign me up for everything this guy has written!
  
  I'm not a true crime fan so I'm surprised I loved this book so much. Not all the chapters are about criminals per se (one is about Anthony Bourdain. I guess that's where the "rebels" in the title comes from) but they were all fascinating with the exception (for me) of the one on an international arms dealer and the one about El Chapo (I cheated and skimmed those two).
  
  All the others held me enthralled and I now have to consider reading more in the genre - at least anything Patrick Radden Keefe has written.
  
  4.5 stars rounded up.
• 
  Brandice

  Rogues is a collection of true stories about grifters, killers, rebels and crooks — The subjects include fake wine, a fascination with a historic tragedy, insider trading, a notorious drug lord, hanging out with Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam, and more!
  
  This is my second book by Patrick Radden Keefe and I continue to be impressed by his level of detail and research. His investigative journalism skills are top notch and the stories shared in Rogues solidify that people are interesting and complex.
• 
  Donna Davis

  Patrick Radden Keefe is a much celebrated journalist with a list of honors and awards as long as your arm. He first drew my notice in 2019 with Say Nothing, his searing, meticulously researched book on The Troubles, that period of guerilla warfare in the North of Ireland, as its people tried (yet again) to break free of British imperial rule. That book rattled me to my core, and when I received a review copy for this book, I understood that there couldn’t possibly be another book as deeply affecting as his last. And I was right; it isn’t. It is, however, interesting in most places, and Keefe can write like nobody’s business. This book is for sale now; my thanks go to Net Galley and Doubleday for the galley.
  
  Each chapter of this book is on a different topic; ostensibly, each is about a different rogue, or group of rogues, or—in one case—a whole family of rogues! However, there are a couple of chapters where that isn’t really true, and that is my strongest quibble with anything presented there. Most, however, are unquestionably about scoundrels. The first, about an obscenely wealthy wine snob who finds himself with some counterfeit wine, makes my blood boil. A private plane, burning enough fuel to melt the polar caps, or to transport a good many people to work for an entire year, is dispatched to fetch some wine. This one makes me cranky enough, and is lengthy enough, that I abandon it halfway in. The next, “Crime Family,” is a riveting expose of a notorious, yet strangely beloved Scandinavian kidnapper whose sister turns him in when she senses that he’s spiraling out of control. She owns five armored cars, because she knows her brother will never rest until one of them is dead. Chilling, indeed! Other favorites are about El Chapo, and about Mark Burnett, the promoter that turned Trump into The Apprentice, splicing and editing sufficiently to make the man sound coherent and businesslike. There is one about the Lockerbie bombing, and another about insider trading, that I tried to care about but couldn’t, so I skipped those. And there’s one about Jeffrey Epstein, too.
  
  All told, this book is a meal. Even if you do as I did, and skip those that don’t spark your interest, this is a well written, worthwhile collection.
  
  Recommended to those that enjoy well crafted journalism.
• 
  Traci Thomas

  I love how PRK writes. He’s so good at storytelling and crafting narrative. This collection is full of incredible characters and stories. I loved about 75% of them and found the other 25% really good but just not as much my interests.
• 
  Peter Boyle

  Many non-fiction readers will be aware of Patrick Radden Keefe's work by now.
  Empire of Pain was one of the best reviewed books of 2021, a searing exposé of the Sackler family and the opioid crisis they helped initiate. I can personally recommend
  Say Nothing, a fresh and hugely compelling exploration of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
  
  Rogues is a collection of Radden Keefe's longform articles that originally appeared in the New Yorker. As the title suggests they focus on all manner of rascals, from lighter accounts of mischief makers and disruptors, to heavier fare that examines the lives of terrorists and murderers.
  
  And I have to be completely honest: I didn't love all of them. I'm not interested in the illegal drug trade, so The Hunt for El Chapo was a piece that I found myself skimming through. Similarly, The Prince of Marbella, about the efforts to catch an international arms dealer didn't grab me at all. And the opening article which takes a look at the rare fine wine industry, was a strange choice to start the book, in my opinion. But this is all down to personal taste, I'm sure they will have plenty of admirers besides my dissenting views.
  
  However, I'm happy to say that there were several pieces I thoroughly enjoyed. The Worst of the Worst is the intriguing tale of the attorney Judy Clarke and her efforts to defend Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the notorious Boston bombers. Journeyman is a beautiful account of time spent with Anthony Bourdain, the food critic and author, which left me saddened at his tragic, untimely demise. But the standout article in my opinion is A Loaded Gun, so good that it prompts me to add an extra star to this review. It investigates Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama who opened fire on six colleagues during a staff meeting in 2010. It's a masterpiece of true crime reporting, a riveting delve into a highly unusual mass shooting that might have been prevented if earlier events in Bishop's life had been given due care and attention. It's still available on the New Yorker website and I highly recommend taking some time out to read it.
  
  It's a pretty wide-ranging collection and there is something here for everybody. It's hard not to be enthralled by Radden Keefe's inquisitive mind - he possesses a dogged inclination to get to the truth of the matter at hand. But he's also a talented storyteller, dangling clues and dropping revelations that compel the reader to keep turning the pages. I'm sure that curious, whirring brain has many more fascinating tales to recount, and I can't wait to bury my nose in them.
• 
  Andrew Smith

  Twelve stories originally published in The New Yorker by multi-prize-winning journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. The linking thread is that all are focussed on a particular person and that to some extent they all share a degree of notoriety. These range from a man accused of forging eye-wateringly expensive wine to a death penalty attorney who specialises in defending the worst of the worst. The least notorious person featured is probably Anthony Bourdain, the cook turned writer and television documentarian who took his own life in 2018.
  
  It was the Bourdain story that drew me to this collection; I’ve long been a fan of both his writing and his television shows. The author is strong on research and in addition he spends a good deal of time talking to the subjects or at least people close to them. In this case he’d clearly spent a decent chunk of time with AB and my sense was that they’d gotten on well. I’m not sure I learned a whole lot I didn’t already know about the man, but as with all of the stories this is a very well written piece. My only regret (I think this is what I was looking for) is that it really adds nothing to the mystery of why Bourdain killed himself, at the top of his fame, just over a year after Keefe published his story.
  
  Of the other stories, I was particularly drawn to the wine forger (it seems that this crime is almost impossible to prove) and the very sad tale of Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama who shot six colleagues during a routine faculty meeting in 2010. The Bishop case is a very strange one indeed, her motivation for carrying out this callous deed being very hard to fathom. But then it’s discovered that she’d shot and killed her younger brother in 1986, an incident officially ruled at the time as an accident. This really is a brilliant collection of true life tales, all comprising just the right amount of intrigue and enough detail to really bring each story to life. In my view it’s a collection not to be missed.
  
• 
  Barbara K.

  A couple of years ago I read Patrick Radden Keefe's
  Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, and was absolutely transfixed by the research and the writing. I remain in awe of his ability to pull together so many (real-life) characters, themes and events, and build a comprehensive story of the Troubles starting from one incident that becomes a symbol for all the pain and confusion of the era.
  
  Each of the pieces of investigative journalism in
  Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks all published in The New Yorker, have that same attention to detail and ability to follow threads and convince people to reveal secrets. A guy dupes collectors all over the world with fake bottles of antique wine, including some allegedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. A university professor who shoots up her colleagues after being denied tenure turns out to have a history of violence that has been kept under the carpet for decades. The capture - and actual retention in a prison - of the drug lord El Chapo. The challenges of African countries to actually benefit financially from their natural assets. An acute, insightful portrait of the late Anthony Bourdain. And more.
  
  I will confess that I skipped one, "How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success". The January 6 hearings are a current reminder of the horrific aftermath of Burnett's marketing of Trump.
• 
  Valerie

  I am a big fan of PRK's work, but this compilation of his work for the New Yorker feels like a cash grab. I get that investigative journalists have been cramped by the pandemic years, but I dislike being lured into this kind of work when it feels like the author's need for a new garage is the driving force. That said, go read "Say Nothing" or "Empire of Pain" and be dazzled by some serious 5 star writing.
• 
  kelly ♥

  say nothing and empire of pain are two of the best nonfic books i have ever read, so i am fully looking forward to this one!
• 
  Ginger

  3.5/4 stars
  
  Rogues was a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed some of the stories and the rest were either okay, or I wasn’t that interested in the details of the case/story.
  
  To me the most interesting stories were:
  
  Crime Family - How a notorious Dutch gangster was exposed by his own sister.
  The Avenger - Has the brother of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing finally solved the case?
  The Hunt for El Chapo - Inside the capture of the world’s most notorious drug lord.
  Winning - How Mark Burnett resurrected Donald Trump as an icon of American success.
  The Worst of the Worst - Judy Clarke excelled at saving the lives of notorious killers. Then she took the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
  Journeyman - Anthony Bourdain’s movable feast.
  
  I did audio for Rogues with Patrick Radden Keefe narrating his own book.
  
  If I would have read this, the stories that bored me might have worked better by reading it. Maybe the details would have stuck more and I wouldn't have zoned out while listening?
  
  Regardless of that, all the stories are well written and there's great details for the case or subject matter.
  Keefe does a great job of investigative journalism, getting the facts down, and talking to many that were involved with the story.
• 
  Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins

  Winning – an essay about reality TV producer Mark Burnett’s role in delivering the Trump presidency – is a stand-out, a highlight in a blazing, brilliant collection.
  
  The Worst Of The Worst – a profile of the defense attorney in the capital case of one of the Boston Marathon bombers – was also incredibly moving and thought provoking.
  
  Journeyman – a portrait of Anthony Bourdain – was so desperately sad, in the wake of his death in 2018.
  
  Honestly, I could talk about the stories in Rogues for hours. Each and every one is masterfully crafted, perfectly balanced, and totally gripping.
  
  My full review of Rogues is up now on
  Keeping Up With The Penguins.
• 
  Joy D

  Collection of twelve previously published essays from the New Yorker on such topics as:
  • Vintage wine fraud –apparently there are people selling fakes for thousands of dollars!
  • An investigation by a victim’s brother into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103
  • A Scandinavian crime family where the kingpin’s sister turns him in and lives in hiding
  • The capture of infamous narcotrafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán
  • Producer Mark Burnett’s role in burnishing the image of Donald Trump, which paved the way for a presidential campaign
  • A defense attorney who represents the “worst of the worst” criminals
  
  I am not a true crime fan, but I found these articles provocative and informative. Patrick Radden Keefe is an author who knows how to tell a true story. It is not quite as compelling as the other two of this author’s books I have read (Say Nothing and Empire of Pain), probably due to my preference for a longer work on a single topic over a series of articles, but definitely worth reading.
• 
  Emily

  I really enjoyed this, because it's just a collection of very good New Yorker articles. It's nice to get a book that curates for you: I have access to a New Yorker subscription and absolutely never use it because I don't like wading through the entire thing every week.
  
  I agree with
  another reviewer that the "rogues" theme doesn't quite work, because I'm not sure what the meaningful connection is between Judy Clarke, Anthony Bourdain, and Monzer al-Kassar. Mostly, it made me wonder how Judy Clarke would defend El Chapo.
  
  Here are some things I learned I do not understand and probably never will:
  - The narcotics trade
  - Arms dealing
  - Witness protection programs
  - White collar crime sentencing
  - Drug development and drug patents
  - Money laundering
  - Resource extraction and mining contracts
  - Extradition and international jurisdiction
  - The mechanics of the stock market
  - Offshore banking
  
  My loving husband told me to add "wine" to this list, but I refuse. I know nothing about wine, but apparently neither do highly-paid wine experts - they can never tell real from fake!
• 
  Howard

  4.5 Stars for Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. By Patrick Radden Keefe read by the author.
  
  This book is made up of 12 articles that appeared in the New Yorker. They are all about people that have taken a different kind path in life. Some of stories are disturbing but they are all well researched and written.
  
  
• 
  Bonnie G.

  I am a huge fan of Patrick Radden Keefe. I don't think there is anyone currently doing long form journalism better than him. This is a collection of New Yorker pieces, the most recent about 5-years old, about rogues of different sorts. I feel like he cast too wide a net perhaps. The subjects of several of the stories are really bad people. Hardy Rodenstock and Bill Koch - both terrible and and entertaining people on opposite sides sides of a fascinating con game are great examples. My favorite story was about the certifiably evil Mark Burnett. Keefe lays out a convincing argument that the same man is responsible for reality television and for Donald Trump being president. That is a rogue!
  
  But then there are people in this rogues' gallery who are simply rebels, who are good. Tony Bordain was a difficult man to be sure, but a good man who hurt no one so badly as he hurt himself and who built empathy and understanding. Judy Clarke is a rebel, one who works within the system, who has given her life to death penalty cases -- much of the story about her focuses on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is a a terrible person, but the real subject is the lawyer who kept him alive (and locked up.) Ken Dornstein is not a rogue at all really He is just a man who dedicated himself to making sense of his brother's death at the hands of terrorists. There are many people here who fall in the middle of the good vs. evil spectrum Hervé Falciani who brought down Swiss banking really mostly did it to save his own ass, but he nonetheless stamped out a lot of evil -- I can go either way on him.
  
  Still, all the stories were fascinating and I am not going to knock off a star for a misleading title. This is a great collection to dip in and out of. Keefe is a treasure.
• 
  Shannon M (This isn’t a dating site)

  I seldom read nonfiction books, but this one sounded interesting. It was. Fascinating in fact. These are twelve essays originally published in The New Yorker written by prize-winning journalist Patrick Keene. With one exception, they are all focused on crime, criminals, murderers, swindlers, those who go after them, and those who defend them.
  
  The Jefferson Bottles: A billionaire is bilked and takes revenge through the courts. A sarcastic look at the very, very rich, how they waste their money on trivial pursuits, and how a con man got a few of their millions. My favourite quote: Bridget Rooney walked in with the couple’s one-year-old daughter, Kaitlin, in her arms. “We’re talking fake wine,” Koch said. “Want to join us?” Rooney took a seat next to him. She wore a rope of enormous pearls around her neck, and didn’t seem to notice that Kaitlin was chewing on them.
  
  Crime Family: The patriarch of a crime family in Holland is incarcerated on the basis of testimony by his sister (who was also a criminal-defence lawyer working for him and his colleagues). Willem Holleeder started out as a kidnapper, then branched into other types of criminal activities. He wanted to be Holland’s “Tony Soprano” but unlike Soprano, beat members of his family (and possibly had a few killed). My favourite quote: Wim even appeared on “College Tour”, a popular Dutch television show that featured interviews with such notable figures as Bill Gates and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The press took to describing Wim as a “knuffel-crimineel”, or “huggable criminal”.
  
  The Avenger: The brother of a man killed in the Lockerbie Bombing spends 25 years attempting to identify the perpetrators of the tragedy. It is the story of obsession. But at the last moment, he has an epiphany—if he continues to follow this obsession, he could easily lose his life. And so he stops, but turns the information he has discovered over to U.S. Department of Justice. My favourite quote: ”At first, I thought they were just another TV crew coming to do a quick story,” Ali Zway told me. “I didn’t understand the obsession until later.”
  
  The Empire of Edge: A story of insider trading. One of the perpetrators get jail time, but the main culprit was never seriously punished. Two favourite quotes in this one: Cohen was never a “value investor”—someone who makes sustained commitments to companies that he believes in. He moved in and out of stocks quickly, making big bets on short-term fluctuations in their price. “Steve has no emotion in this stuff”, one of his portfolio managers said in a disposition last year. “Stocks mean nothing to him. They’re just ideas.” And the ending: Steve Cohen settled the SEC’s civil case against him in 2016; he was barred from investing outside money, but only until 2018. He remains one of the richest people on Wall Street. In 2020, he bought a controlling interest in the New York Mets.
  
  A Loaded Gun: A 44-year-old woman, a university professor, shoots six people, three of them fatally, because she was going to be denied tenure (which, in university-land, means “You’re fired!”). Was this irrational behaviour due to the fact that she accidentally shot and killed her brother 24 years earlier? She was never charged in that incident because of her mother’s intervention. My favourite quote: ”People kept sweeping her bad behavior under the rug, and now they’re paying a tremendous price.”
  
  The Hunt For El Chapo: The various escapades, escapes, and final capture of El Chapo, the notorious Mexican drug lord. My favourite quote: One by-product of the culture of corruption in Mexico is a reflexive cynicism about any official story put out by the government.
  
  Winning: A profile of Mark Burnett, who created the following reality shows: Survivor, The Apprentice, Shark Tank, and The Voice. (I can proudly say that I never watched a single episode of any of them, or of any reality show for that matter.) In “Winning” Keene concentrates on the relationship between Burnett and Donald Trump, and on how that TV show resurrected Trump’s fame. My favourite quote: But his chief legacy is to have cast a serially bankrupt carnival barker in the role of a man who might plausibly become the leader of the free world.
  
  Swiss Bank Heist: Herve Falciani was a computer technician who copied and subsequently released records from the Swiss Bank HSBC showing how millionaires, billionaires, and drug kingpins hid their money from their countries’ tax authorities. Did he copy these records in order to blackmail the bank, or out of a sense of justice? The article leaves this question unsolved. At any rate, after he was almost caught by the Swiss, he released his records to French authorities. My favourite quotes: There was ample evidence that the global plutocracy has many outlets for dissemination in the realm of personal finance. plus: Greece had amassed a giant debt, and to reduce it, Papaconstantinou had enacted severe austerity measures, cutting pensions and wages and raising taxes, even though many Greeks were in desperate financial straits. Yet, when Papaconstantinou learned the names of the wealthy Greeks who were hiding their fortunes offshore, the government took no action.
  
  The Prince of Marbella: How the DEA ran an elaborate sting to catch a major arms dealer. My favourite quote: the DEA has an unusually expansive network of agents and informants. Because there is often a nexus between narcotics and arms dealing, terrorism, and other international crimes, the agency’s elite Special Operations Division sometimes undertakes multi-jurisdictional investigations that end up having nothing to do with drugs.
  
  The Worst of the Worst: The lawyer Judy Clarke is dogmatically opposed to the death penalty, to such an extent that she takes on defence cases where there is no question that the accused is guilty of heinous crimes. We were supposed to empathize with Clarke’s driven obsession in this piece. I didn’t. In fact, I disliked her. In Canada , at least, “life imprisonment” does not mean “imprisoned for life”; people guilty of abhorrent crimes, like Paul Bernardo who murdered and tortured young girls, are released after serving only a portion of their lives in prison. My favourite quote: ”Judy is fascinated by what makes people tick—what drives people to commit these kinds of crimes.”
  
  Buried Secrets: The African country of Guinea has a fortune in iron ore that is difficult to extract and transport to shipping port. In 1997 the rights to develop a large deposit was give to the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest iron-ore producers. But in 2008, Rio Tinto was stripped of its license, and the rights were given to BSGR, a small company without the expertise needed to mine the ore. BSGR then flipped the contract rights to another company with the needed expertise, earning a large profit in the process. Guinea’s ruling government changed, and the fight against the BSGR contract began. There was evidence of extensive bribery involved in awarding the contract to BSGR. There is evidence that the billionaire owner of BGGR, Beny Steinmetz, has primarily used bribes and other nebulous means to amass his fortune. My favourite quotes: According to Transparency International, Guinea is one of the most corrupt countries on earth. Plus Africa’s resource wealth has bypassed the vast majority of African people and built vast fortunes for a privileged few. Plus The World Bank estimates that 40 percent of the private wealth in Africa is held outside the continent.
  
  Journeyman: A profile of Anthony Bourdaine. I did not know why this piece was included in the book, given that Bourdaine was never involved with any criminal enterprises. He did waste his youth in the drug culture, but managed to escape it and build a notable reputation based on his adventurous culinary undertakings. He was always challenging his own way of life. No quote, because the last sentence is a spoiler, and it is what gives away the reason this piece was included. I read again the book’s title: Rogues: True Stories of Drifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. Bourdaine was a rebel.
• 
  BookStarRaven

  I really enjoyed Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe. Ever since reading Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe has been on my must-read list. Given that I’m a true crime fan, this new book was perfect for me. This book includes many short stories of true crimes from cons to murder.
  
  I really liked the short-form story format. It meant my attention didn’t have to last too long while reading each story. I’ve been busy lately and this book was perfect for me to pick up in between the many different activities I’ve been involved in. I also liked how he did some stories that I recognized while many others were new to me.
  
  I would recommend this book to anyone who likes short non-fiction stories or true crime.
  
  Rating: 4/5
  Genre: Non-Fiction/True Crime
• 
  Sarah

  Somewhere between 4 - 4.5
  
  If you’ve enjoyed his previous books this is definitely a similar vibe, just in a shorter format — these are 12 articles previously published in The New Yorker on various personalities, most with a criminal connection (I loved the one on Bourdain but not sure what that was doing here). Recommended!
• 
  britt_brooke

  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Keefe is a master of narrative nonfiction! There are few things I enjoy more, honestly. This collection of #TheNewYorker articles is thoughtful and respectful even when perhaps the subject matter doesn’t deserve such grace, though some surely do. There’s fraud, corruption, and many stories that toe the line of illicit and legit. Unsurprisingly, the Anthony Bourdain essay was my favorite. The death row attorney, a close second. Riveting!
• 
  TheBookWarren

  4.25 Stars — This latest effort, from one of my current favourite authors and somewhat of a hot commodity of late, Journalist Patrick Radden-Keefe — Rogues tells the stories of a number of people throughout the world whom have been impacted by or performed a crime, con, grift etc, each story in and of itself holds up well to the extraordinary high level PRK has established for himself in the last few years with incredible books such as Say Nothing & Empire of pain. Both these novels earned the New York columnist worldwide acclaim and ‘Say nothing’
  — A story of a murdered woman in strife and war-riddled Northern Ireland at the height of Catholic/Protestant tension — in particular, being one of the greatest nonfiction reads of all-time and one of my favourite books of all-time, such was its power, grace, research depth and compelling nature.
  
  Rogues is a very different prospect from PRK’s recent work, but is obviously very much in-line with his regular role as a Staff Writer for the New Yorker. Crossing countries, and telling tales of extreme intrigue and impact, we get to hear from those whom have suffered at the hands of numerous types of criminals or people whom behave badly, as well as some of the characters at the centre of it, themselves. This is from the outset — clearly a book by a reporter whom is truly in their prime. The author oozes class and has a prose that’s all his own, yet also completely strict and maniacally to the point at times, which is a hard dichotomy to expand on but one that works utterly well within the flow of his work.
  
  Telling stories of corruption in the US, Dutch Drug Barrens, and even — my personal favourite — a German wine critic whom had the entire world believing he had a knack for discovering the worlds rarest wine time and time again, even though it was all total bullocks! Each story is told with purpose, fairness and takes you right into the eyes of the storm in a way on the worlds best writers can.
  
  This is clearly not a work of staggering genius like some of his previous novels but nor is it meant to be — it’s an anthology of a writer and reporter who’s seen a thing or two and it is still well and truly one of the best nonfiction reads of the year without a doubt.
• 
  Dan

  Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe
  
  There are twelve essays compiled here that Keefe wrote over the past ten years.
  
  Several of the stories here are 5 star caliber. I have found when Keefe has time to research his subject and interview both them and those in the orbit, then you will almost always get a masterful story out of Keefe
  
  Here are the twelve stories and my rating for each and a comment or two.
  
  1. The Jefferson Bottles - I never thought I'd find a story on vintage wine collecting to be interesting. But where there's a buck there is usually a con-man. 4 stars
  
  2. Crime Family - who knew there was a mafia in the Netherlands. Heart wrenching story. 4.5 stars
  
  3. The Avenger - I always wondered what happened to the man released for the Lockerbie bombing. 4 stars
  
  4. The Empire of Edge - if you've ever wondered how the financial huckster, billionaire and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen got his money then this story will give you some insight. 3 stars
  
  5. A Loaded Gun - simply a phenomenal piece of journalism. Keefe seemed to interview every one for this story about Amy Bishop. Bishop was the professor who was convicted to consecutive life sentences for murdering three of her colleagues and injuring six in an Alabama shooting only hours after she was refused tenure. This story is about extreme narcissists and those parents and spouses that enable them. Tragically this allegedly wasn't the first murder she committed. But when your mom had helped fund the police chief's re-election campaign then suspicious crimes become accidents. 6 stars
  
  6. The Hunt for El Chapo - so much has already been written about El Chapo. Not much new ground here. 3 stars
  
  7. Winning - an article about the BS artist Mark Burnett and how he and The Apprentice legitimized and unleashed Trump on the American public. Very well written article. I might have given 5 stars but I have too much distaste for the subjects. 4.5 stars
  
  8. Swiss Bank Heist - meh. Not even Keefe can make the topic of Swiss Bankers seem interesting. 3 stars
  
  9. The Prince of Marbella - another exceptional story about a charismatic Lebanese arms dealer who after fifty years was finally brought to justice by the U.S. government. 5 stars
  
  10. The Worst of the Worst - Judy Clarke defends those on trial for the death penalty. Would have given 5 stars but it was too sad. 4 stars
  
  11. Buried Secrets - a story about blood diamonds. 3.5 stars
  
  12. Journeyman - in depth article on Anthony Bourdain before his passing. 4.5 stars
  
  This averaged out to 4.1 stars. Keefe excels in covering stories that you've never heard of or are a bit under the radar. Glad I read the book.
• 
  Camelia Rose

  A collection of 12 articles written by the author and first published in The New Yorker. As explained by the author in the prologue, these articles “reflect on some of (his) abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial."
  
  My impressions of some of the stories:
  
  Crime Family: How a Notorious Dutch gangster Was Exposed by His Own Sister (2018)
  A story of a gangster in one of the most liberal countries in the world. All dramas are family dramas.
  
  The Empire of Edge: How a Doctor, a Trader, and The Billionaire Steven A. Cohen Got Entangled in a Vast Financial Scandal (2014)
  A white collar crime story. Some family fortresses are built on lies. How far would you go to protect your family honor by denying your criminality? No, the biggest criminal in this financial scandal, Steven A. Cohen, is not punished.
  
  A Loaded Gun: A Mass Shooter’s Tragic Past (2013)
  The story of Amy Bishop, the mass shooter at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2010. All dramas are family dramas. Who are the villains beside Amy Bishop? The author hints the root cause of the tragedy is the father.
  
  Winning: How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success (2019)
  Given the damage Donald Trump had done to American democracy, this is the most disturbing article in the collection.
  
  Swiss Bank Heist: The Computer Technician Who Exposed a Geneva Bank’s Darkest Secrets (2016)
  Another white collar crime story but with a twist. No, HSBC and other Swiss banks still have not changed their secretive, crime-protecting practices.
  
  Buried Secrets: How an Israeli Billionaire Wrested Control of One of Africa’s Biggest Prizes (2013)
  The story of how Beny Steinmetz, an Israeli billionaire, wrested control of the iron-rich Simandou mountain range in Guinea. This kind of story makes me want to bury my head in sand. Why is it so hard to build a new, fair, inclusive political system in a country, a small country, any country?
  
  Journeyman: Anthony Bourdain’s Movable Feast (2017)
  This article feels out of place, for Anthony Bourdain is not a villain, but I enjoy it very much.
• 
  Jill Mackin

  A collection of the author's works from various magazines....Most were well-written, eye-opening and interesting.
• 
  Christina Pilkington

  *3.5 stars*
  
  After loving my read of Empire of Pain last year, I was excited to see Patrick Radden Keefe had another book coming out this year. I knew this book would be a collection of long-form articles Radden Keefe wrote for The New Yorker featuring different types of criminals, from serial killers and thieves to black arms dealers and white collar criminals.
  
  While I adored Radden Keefe's writing style, it felt like a chore to get through several of these articles. They just didn't hold my attention like I wanted them to, although there were a few fascinating stories in the mix.
  
  Hopefully, Radden Keefe's next book will focus on one story which I think works better for me.
• 
  Lyn

  I will read anything by this author - anything. See Empire of Pain and Say Nothing for examples of stellar books by him. This is a collection of stories he has previously written for The New Yorker. Although some are dated, all are excellent. Fascinating read.