title: Reporting at Wit's End: Tales from the New Yorker
author:  St. Clair McKelway 
description: A rogue's gallery of shady, quirky, beguiling figures populates this scintillating collection of essays by one of the <i>New Yorker</i>'s seldom-sung masters. Writing for the magazine from the 1930s through the 1960s, McKelway specialized in light true crime stories about arsonists, embezzlers, counterfeiters, suspected Communists, and innocent men and the fire investigators, forensic accountants, Secret Service men, clueless FBI agents, and biased cops who pursued them. He's fascinated by procedural, cat-and-mouse games and the sheer artistry of crime for crime's sake; his portrait of serial impostor Stanley Weyman is a gem of motiveless miscreancy, culminating in Weyman's impersonation of the (nonexistent) State Department Naval Liaison Officer in order to introduce one Princess Fatima of Afghanistan to President Harding. In addition to police blotter material, the author pens a cutting profile of the egomaniacal gossip columnist Walter Winchell and recollections of his war-time stint as an air force PR flack (with a rather blithe account of the firebombing of Tokyo). McKelway's deceptively straightforward prose accretes facts, testimony, and court documents into subtle character studies and unobtrusive ruminations on the crooked timber of humanity. His limpid style and wry humor make these pieces as fresh and engaging as the day they appeared. <i>(Mar.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  REPORTING AT  
  WIT’S END
  
  
  
  
  
  REPORTING AT  
  WIT’S END
  
  
  
  
  
  Tales from _The New Yorker_
  
  
  
  
  
  St. Clair McKelway
  
  
  Introduction by Adam Gopnik
  
  
  ![111411544](images/9781608191239_ps_0003_001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Compilation copyright
  
  
  © 2010 by the Estate of St. Clair McKelway  
  Introduction copyright
  
  
  © 2010 by Adam Gopnik
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
  manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the
  case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
  
  
    
  For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue,
  
  
    
  New York, NY 10010.
  
  
  Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
  
  
  
  
  
  The pieces in this collection were originally published, sometimes in somewhat
  different form, in _The New Yorker_ , and in the books _Gossip:  
  The Life and Times of Walter Winchell_, _True Tales from the Annals of Crime
  and_ _Rascality_ , _The Edinburgh Caper_ , and _The Big Little Man from
  Brooklyn