The Longformist
Vol. 3, April 2026
Hello and welcome to The Longformist, my newsletter of my favorite longform journalism published over the past month (plus two non-timely book recs and a podcast.) I am an investigative reporter based in San Diego. As a reader, I gravitate towards politics, international affairs, business, crime and history–the more reporter-on-the-ground the better. If that sounds like your interests too, then please subscribe and share.
-Brent Crane
The Best
He Helped Stop Iran From Getting The Bomb, David D. Kirkpatrick, the New Yorker
In this riveting glimpse behind the veil of US espionage, a former super spy in the Middle East decides to tell all to one of America’s best national security reporters. “Not long after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Kevin Chalker set out to become a spy.”
My Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler, McKay Coppins, the Atlantic
This personal investigation into the exploding world of sports betting was on my mind during a visit to Las Vegas this month. As McKay shows us, even gambling for journalistic reasons is a dangerous gambit. “Since 2018, Americans have wagered more than half a trillion dollars on sports, and roughly half of men ages 18 to 49 have an active account with an online sportsbook.”
Big Game, Nick Davidson, the Atavist
I had no idea that there was such a thing as undercover poachers operating for US Fish and Wildlife. Davidson brings this hidden world to life with cinematic verve and deep sourcing. “But I have to be real careful,” Espinoza added. “If I find out you’re a federal agent, I’ll shoot you and leave you out here in a gut pile.”
Beta Blockers, Charles Bethea, the New Yorker
This was a fun dispatch from the lucrative world of male empowerment programs that, in between funny anecdotes, gets surprisingly touching. “‘The gift that he’s getting right now is just knowing that other men are sitting here listening to him and saying, ‘Hey, we love you, bro. We get it.’”
No Enemies to the Right, Antonia Hitchens, the New Yorker
In a similar but more toxic vein, Hitchens’ reporting from within the bowels of the “Groyper” right is both utterly compelling and deeply depressing. “They greet each other with the salutation ‘Christ is King’; they banter about their aspiration to re-create Agartha, a mythological Aryan kingdom supposedly situated somewhere in the earth’s core.”
Nonfiction book
A Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, Amy Stanley (2020)
This carefully constructed biography of a common woman in 19th-century Tokyo (then Edo) reads like fiction. Stanley, the rare historian that can actually write, relies on a goldmine of letters to recreate her subject’s life, fleeing bad marriages for the big city. Concurrently, we learn about the immense societal changes transforming the last days of feudal Japan. “Maybe everyone in Edo was maintaining an illusion of sanity with clothes and hairpins. Or maybe they all started out as virtuous people but were transformed into monsters when they learned—over and over again—that they could never hold on to what they thought was theirs.”
Novel
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
Noticing that Dostoevsky has been having a moment, I took this one off the shelf. It describes the aftermath of a senseless double-murder in csarist St. Petersburg, but feels like it could have been written yesterday. Reading it, you’re reminded of Hemingway’s line, about how Dostoevsky could write “so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply.” “‘Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.’”
Podcast
Wright Thompson: Learn Storytelling in 63 Minutes, How I Write