With over 50 pieces in the book, a discussion of just the most important would still lead to a novella-length review, but I can't resist a closer look at a couple of favorites. One of Rosenbaum's earliest investigations (1971) was into the subculture of "phone phreaks," the nerdy proto-hackers whose outlaw spirit and technical acumen gained them free long distance service, access to Ma Bell's most intimate secrets, and directly influenced the digital revolution.

After empathetically introducing us to the clandestine world of various "phreaks" (many of whom were teenaged and/or blind) with nom de te'le'phones such as Captain Crunch, Dr. No, Cheshire Cat, and Midnight Skulker, Rosenbaum, in his postscript, relates some of the story's "curious ongoing repercussions": Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, co-founders of Apple Computer, read the original article in Esquire and attempted to build "blue box" phone-hacking devices described in the story, which ultimately led to the founding of Apple. Captain Crunch went legit and "put his genius to work in programming the breakthroughs that made the p.c. user-friendly to the masses." From the beginning of his career, Rosenbaum has not only described modern culture, but affected its course.

Another favorite tale involves a foppish, foolish, but brilliant young man named David Whiting, actress Sarah Miles' "business manager," and his 1973 death under mysterious circumstances in Miles' motel room, on location in Gila Bend, Arizona, for the shooting of the MGM Western, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. Rosenbaum leads the reader through an extremely thorough, subtle and disturbing investigation that points to one of the book's real bombshells: that Miles and her Cat Dancing co-star Burt Reynolds were at best disingenuous about events leading to Whiting's death, and at worst they conspired to cover up their own culpability regarding it, including the possibility that a beating from the hot-tempered Reynolds contributed to that death. The cat's out of that bag, but read the book for many more surprises and a month's worth of great company.