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True Crimes and Misdemeanors
True Crimes and Misdemeanors
Jan 10, 2026 1:18 AM

Author:Jeffrey Toobin

True Crimes and Misdemeanors

What happens when the President of the United States engages in criminal activity? He runs for re-election.

Donald Trump's campaign chairman went to jail. So did his personal lawyer. His long-time political consigliere was convicted of serious federal crimes, and his National Security Advisor pleaded guilty to several more. Multiple Russian spies were indicted in absentia. Career intelligence agents and military officers were alarmed enough by his actions as President that they alerted senior government officials and ignited the impeachment process. Yet despite all this, a years-long inquiry led by Robert Mueller, and the third Presidential impeachment trial in American history, Donald Trump survived to run for presidency again. Why?

Jeffrey Toobin's highly entertaining, definitive account of the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of the President takes readers behind the scenes of the epic legal and political struggle to call Trump to account for his misdeeds. Toobin recounts the mind-boggling twists and turns in the case – Trump's son met with a Russian operative promising Kremlin support; Trump paid a porn star $130,000 to hush up an affair; Rudy Giuliani and a pair of shady Ukrainian-American businessmen got the Justice Department to look at Russian-created conspiracy theories. Toobin shows how Trump's canny lawyers used Mueller's famous integrity against him, and how Trump's bullying and bluster cowed Republican legislators into ignoring the clear evidence of the impeachment hearings.

Based on dozens of interviews with prosecutors in Mueller's office, Trump's legal team, Congressional investigators, White House staffers, and several of the key players, including some who are now in prison, True Crimes and Misdemeanours is a revelatory narrative that makes sense of the seemingly endless chaos of the Trump years. Filled with never-before-reported details of the high-stakes legal battles and political machinations, the book weaves a tale of a rogue President guilty of historic misconduct, and how he got away with it.

Reviews

Toobin's eye for details is entertaining

—— Gerard Baker , The Times

His final masterpiece... Enthralling and indispensable for understanding modern history

—— New York Review of Books

Orwell remains the most indispensable English writer of his period

—— Observer

Matchlessly sharp and fresh... The clearest and most compelling English prose style this century

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

Many writers and journalists have tried to imitate his particular kind of clarity without possessing anything like his moral authority

—— Peter Ackroyd , The Times

I loved that behind this disturbing and clever plot there's a genuinely heartrending story.

—— Emma Curtis

An intriguing and unsettling new thriller.

—— Fabulous

If you go down to Blackwood Bay, you're in for a dark surprise. FINAL CUT is a masterfully tense, taut and terrifying thriller.

—— Tim Glister

There are so many twist and turns I was out of breath when I finished

—— Matt Cain

An expertly crafted thriller. Claustrophobic and unnerving. Watson at his very best.

—— Will Carver

A twisty psychological thriller.

—— Choice Magazine

Incredibly atmospheric and captivating. I loved the way the mystery unfolded.

—— Karen Hamilton

Watson is fascinating on the ins and outs of memory, and paces his story with mesmerising expertise.

—— Sunday Express

Stalingrad has been beautifully translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, and lovingly pieced together, with the censored passages restored. Anybody who knows and admires Life and Fate would enjoy it (many of the same characters reappear)… It is a powerful war book

—— Victor Sebestyen , New Statesman

Compelling… [and] extraordinary storytelling… The English translation is an epic in itself… the story of the publication process sheds new light on how the typescript became almost as much of a battleground as the streets of Stalingrad. It gives a clear insight into the nature of Soviet political pressure, and of Grossman’s bravery… It’s a pleasure, albeit a bleak one, to see more of his brave work at last being rediscovered and published today, and his truth told

—— Vanora Bennett , Prospect

More than a novel, more than a history, more than graphic imagery, Stalingrad is written with an acute insight into the relationships of people caught up in the momentous tectonic shifts of history. A truly symphonic work… Robert and Elizabeth Chandler’s superb translation and editing…captures Grossman’s poetic intensity, bringing home the pain and the pity of a dying city

—— Gordan Parsons , Morning Star

A gloriously written book

—— Mark Glanville , Jewish Chronicle

The novel in this new, uncensored version does constantly what the best journalism does, which is to offer us significant details and show how they form part of a larger story… [a] wonderful novel… The translation that the Chandlers have put together is a masterpiece of empathy, a true mirror of the values that Grossman consistently champions over the course of Stalingrad… an engrossing, coherent and deeply moving work of art… a truly remarkable achievement

—— James Womack , Literary Review

An argument to read him not only as a fervent critic of totalitarianism, but as a deeply compassionate writer with an extraordinary gift for portraying psychological complexity and sensory detail

—— New Republic

This first English version of Stalingrad is a triumph on many levels… [Stalingrad] captures a definitive moment… [and Grossman] delivers an enduring tribute to the power of human spirit

—— Ella Walker , Herald

A seething fresco of combat, domestic routine under siege and intellectual debate, it confirms that Grossman was the supreme bard of the second world war

—— Economist, *Books of the Year*

To read Stalingrad is to be immersed in a world where everything is in flux… The reader emerges from his pages exhausted and chastened, but hugely enriched… the translators have done a superb job. If you haven’t read Life and Fate, it would pay to read Stalingrad first and prepare for the marathon of both volume; if you have, Stalingrad is an essential companion’

—— Dougal Jeffries , BJGP

A powerful account of families torn apart by probably the bloodiest campaign in history

—— Janet Margaret Hartley , Geographical

[A] masterpiece

—— Lucy Beckett , Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

A magnificent novel not only of war but of all human life

—— History Revealed, *Books of the Year*

What Red Was is an impressively successful debut... if you are looking for a gripping yet thought-provoking read which will have you hooked from the first page, look no further than What Red Was

—— Libby Wright , Palantinte

A gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal

—— BookRiot

A gripping portrait of four young women in South Korea... its focus on the tangled and complicated nature of female friendship is universally familiar and fascinating

—— Refinery 29

Hypnotising... you won't want to put it down until the very last page

—— Harper's Bazaar

You'll find sisterhood at the heart of this ambitious book

—— New York Times Book Review

Tremain's extraordinary imagination has produced a powerful, unsettling novel in which two worlds and cultures collide

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Tremain writes about this part of France so well because she has known it since childhood, and she captures a sensuality in the landscape that is both attractive and eerie... It is an enthralling book about the catastrophic disruption honesty can bring

—— Siobhan Kane , Irish Times

The novel has all the formal structure of a medieval morality tale, along with its traditional dichotomies: rus and urbe, avarice and asceticism, chastity and lust

—— Guardian

Rose Tremain's thrilling Trespass is set in an obsure valley in Southern France... To be read slowly; Tremain's writing is too exquisite to hurry

—— The Times

Timeless but rooted; tangible but otherworldly. Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time

—— Scotland on Sunday

Rose Tremain's novel begins with a scream and barely loosens its grip amid the sumptuously written pages that follow...subtly harnesses the stifling heat and dangerously feral landscape of southern France to unspool a psychologically disconcerting story of family skeletons and outsider tensions

—— Metro

Like a sinister edition of A Place In the Sun directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with the depth and subtlety that make the book far more than a mere thriller

—— You Magazine (Daily Mail)
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