Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Keefe’s essays span multiple nations and time periods, and many of his protagonists are particularly shaped by geography. Sometimes, his subjects recapitulate the settings of their childhoods. The Holleeder family’s story is uniquely Dutch: Astrid has turned her home city of Amsterdam into her hiding place, which she posits began in her upbringing as “home was a prison” (26) due to her father’s abuse. She notes that Wim’s first notorious crime, the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken, is similarly inextricable from her family’s working-class roots: Heineken was her father’s employer and thus a key contributor to both the family’s well-being and its destruction. Wim uses his whiteness and Dutch nationality to establish his popularity as a folk hero. Astrid’s only vision of escape is writing enough to be able to afford leaving the Netherlands entirely. Similarly, Keefe turns to Amy Bishop’s suburban childhood in seemingly idyllic Braintree, Massachusetts, to explain the violence she enacts as an adult.

Keefe’s other subjects find opportunity in their surroundings. Hervé Falciani is a product of a particular milieu: His information transparency crusade is only possible due to Swiss bank privacy laws and the fact that, in the words of one employee, “we all have one foot in prison” (212). Meanwhile, poverty in Mexico enables the violence and corruption of the narcotics trade—there is no Chapo Guzmán without Sinaloa.

In Keefe’s account, geography can be both cause of tragedy and celebration. If most of Keefe’s geographies link crime, tragedy, and loss, Anthony Bourdain’s settings are richly textured and full of adventure. Food opens the world to him, and Keefe is literally along for the ride. Openness to the world’s variety is Bourdain’s signature philosophical commitment, and it is one of Keefe’s rare forays into a kind of hope and joy.