Evidence of Things Seen

April 15, 2023
A collection of previously published essays on crime. Weinman--a crime writer and the editor of a previous anthology, Unspeakable Acts--compiles some of the past few years' best reporting on crime and crime media, previously published in outlets including Vice and the Atlantic. Some of the essays offer explicit critiques of crime discourses (both true and fictional), from a True Crime Junkies Facebook group to The Wire. Others use the format to tell underreported stories. In an exemplary piece, Justine van der Leun employs both data and human-focused storytelling to reveal the pipeline that pushes women from poverty and childhood abuse to sex work, violence, and prison, often as punishment for "acts of survival" or self-defense. Many essays are well worth reading, but most of them have been widely circulated already, so readers may wonder about the purpose in reprinting them. Both Rabia Chaudry's introduction and Weinman's editor's note make claims about true crime--a phrase that generally conjures murder-mystery podcasts and serial-killer documentaries--without defining it or distinguishing between the genre of voyeuristic entertainment and the systems-focused crime writing that comprises the volume. Chaudry confusingly writes that the recent rise in public consciousness about the injustices of policing and criminal-legal systems can "nearly all...be attributed to true crime media." However, as some contributors note, sensationalized crime stories can do as much harm as rigorous ones do good. The middle section of the book contains critiques of popular crime media, which Amanda Knox, in a chapter rebuking her own story's relentless misrepresentation in the media, calls "a voracious content mill." Weinman sought "to hold the true crime genre to higher ethical standards," but most of these essays surmount the genre altogether. Other contributors include Wesley Lowery, May Jeong, and Diana Moskovitz. An up-and-down anthology of important perspectives on injustice within the legal system and crime media alike.

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May 1, 2023
Journalist Weinman, author of the excellent Scoundrel (2022), serves as editor of this collection of 14 true-crime essays. Here's a story about a lynching that went unsolved for decades because the police didn't give a damn; a very interesting reappraisal of the writings of true-crime writer and novelist Edna Buchanan; a piece written by Amanda Knox, wrongly convicted of murder, who discusses the way her name and story are frequently used (or abused) without her permission; and an examination of the way amateur sleuths can bring justice when law enforcement cannot. While the writing styles vary, the focus does not: this is a book about finding justice in a system that can frequently be unjust. These are stories about inequality, victims who must fight to be heard, and the tendency of the legal system to marginalize, or ignore, entire groups of people. Although the essays are for the most part objective and dispassionate, the book still engenders frustration at the injustices perpetrated by the legal system. A valuable addition to the ever-growing genre of crime nonfiction.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.