J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, and Roy Cohn were titanic figures in the midcentury United States, wielding national power in government and the legal system through intimidation and insinuation. Hoover's FBI thrived on secrecy, threats, and illegal surveillance, while McCarthy and Cohn will forever be associated with the infamous anticommunist smear campaign of the early 1950s, which culminated in McCarthy's public disgrace during televised Senate...

Over the course of her career, journalist Marie Brenner has profiled heroes, villains, and those who fall in-between. This collection includes profiles of war correspondent Marie Colvin, teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, Donald Trump, and Richard Jewell, whose life was turned upside-down after being wrongfully named as a suspect in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing. In the early morning hours of July 27, 1996, three pipe bombs exploded at the Summer...