Reviews

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe

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sreyasreya's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5

zclrksn's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

edzee_lcnm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative mysterious medium-paced

4.0

Snuck this one under the wire as I am seeing Patrick Radden Keefe this coming weekend at the 2024 Santa Fe Literary Festival. I had high hopes/expectations with this one as Keefe's "Empire of Pain" was one of my top books/reads of 2021. This is a collection of previously published (??) articles (long-form journalism) each is about an hour's worth of reading -- and a staggering depth and exhaustive breadth of people and stories -- from white collar crime to death row inmates to crime families to the world of fine wine (and forgery). Being a pop culture fan, the pieces re: Mark Burnett, the man behind of 'Survivor' and now more infamously 'The Apprentice' and thus the rise of Donald Tr&mp and the last piece about Anthony Bourdain were personal favorites.

Much like fiction short story collections, your miles may vary going from piece to piece. Despite always fascinating topics, I will admit there are some pieces that I zoned out on and some dragged on a bit longer than I would have preferred -- but no one can fault Keefe for not being thorough as well as being an incredible writer as well.

Overall, landing on 4 stars based on my variable interest in some of the stories -- but again, there's no doubt in my mind that every reader will learn something new in each one of them.