Malcolm tackles a challenging dilemma with the first and most famous sentence in this slim volume: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” She is referring to the pathologic relationship that the journalist has to form with the subject in order to ferret out the facts of a story and is focused specifically on the trial of MacDonald vs McGinnis, in which Jeffrey McDonald sued Joe McGinnis for ‘lying’ to him in the aftermath of MacDonald’s conviction for the 1970 murders of his wife and two daughters. This sensational murder trial and aftermath were the subject of McGinnis’s book Fatal Vision in which McGinnis opined that MacDonald was indeed guilty based on his very close association with MacDonald and his defense team, before, during and after the trial. A jury could not reach a decision in the ‘lying’ trial and McGinnis ended up settling for $325K. Malcolm interviews all of the principals in this melodrama including William Buckley and Joseph Wambaugh, the only writers who testified in McGinnis’ behalf and ends up concluding that there is a need for both the reporter and the subject to deceive each other in this weird relationship. There is also a need for the writer to create a ‘novelistic character’ of the subject, who typically is boring and plain. This basically deceitful relationship is inherent in the journalist’s work. Malcolm discovers and enlarges on much information regarding MacDonald and the original crime, but concludes journalistically that we will never know the truth. Written nearly a quarter century ago, Malcolm continues to write wonderful essays at the age of 80;McGinnis died this year at 72 from prostate cancer; MacDonald continues to serve three life sentences for murder while continuing to deny his guilt.