Patrick Radden Keefe is an expert in long-form journalism, and his particular specialty is the so-called “write around,” in which a journalist constructs a profile of an individual, even if that person can’t or doesn’t want to be interviewed. In Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (15.5 hours), Keefe compiles 12 such essays, originally published in The New Yorker between 2007 and 2019, with updates appended. Among these are portraits of “Survivor” creator and producer Mark Burnett, food writer Anthony Bourdain and the drug lord Joaquin Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo.
The author reads his own work with care and conviction, giving listeners a good sense of why he’s such an effective interviewer and storyteller. Furthermore, each chapter is about an hour long, which makes this audiobook a particularly good choice for fans of true crime podcasts.