True Story tie-in edition: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa

The improbable but true story of a man accused of murdering his entire family and the journalist he impersonated while on the run

In 2001, Mike Finkel was on top of the world: young, talented, and recently promoted to a plum job at the New York Times Magazine. Then he made an irremediable slip: Under extraordinary pressure to keep producing blockbuster stories, he fabricated parts of an article. Caught and excommunicated from the Times, he retreated to his home in Montana, swearing off any contact with the media. When the phone rang, though, he couldn’t resist. At the other end was a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, whom Finkel congratulated on being the first in what was sure to be a long and bloodthirsty line of media watchdogs. The reporter was puzzled.

In Waldport, Oregon, Christian Longo had killed his young wife and three children and dumped their bodies into the bay. With a stolen credit card, he fled south, making his way to Cancun, where he lived for several weeks under an assumed identity: Michael Finkel, journalist for the New York Times.

True Story is the tale of a bizarre and convoluted collision between fact and fiction, and a meditation on the slippery nature of truth. When Finkel contacts Longo in jail, the two men begin a close and complex relationship. Over the course of a year, they exchange long letters and weekly phone calls, playing out a cat-and-mouse game in which it’s never quite clear if the pursuer is Finkel or Longo—or both. Finkel’s dogged pursuit of the true story pays off only at the end, in the gripping trial scenes in which Longo, after a lifetime of deception, finally tells the whole truth. Or so he says.

Now a Major Motion Picture Starring Jonah Hill & James Franco and Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures

When New York Times reporter Michael Finkel meets accused killer Christian Longo–who has taken on Finkel's identity–his investigation morphs into an unforgettable game of cat and mouse. True Story weaves a spellbinding tale of murder, love, deceit, and redemption, following Finkel's relentless pursuit of the shocking truth.

“Astute and hypnotically absorbing . . . there’s a burning sincerity and beautifully modulated writing on every page.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Always fascinating, sometimes funny, often very weird . . . simply terrific from the first page to the last. - Jeffrey Toobin

“A riveting read.” - New York Observer

A compulsively readable amorality tale. - Boston Globe

“Carefully structured, rigorously reported, and fascinating till the end.” - Esquire

A riveting, disturbing and magnificent merging of two men at their lowest moments. - New York Newsday

Combines crime and intellectual heft...could well become a classic of the genre. - Washington Post Book World

A memoir as creepy as it is compelling...expertly and suspensefully told. - Outside magazine

“A riveting true-crime tale with an outlandish real premise....This startling memoir of twin ambitions gone amok builds to a haunting climax.” - Seattle Post-Intelligencer