Best of Longform.org 2018

People who are short on relatives can hire a husband, a mother, a grandson. The resulting relationships can be more real than you’d expect, Elif Batuman writes.

A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave.

Waste removal is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. On the darkened streets of New York City, it’s a race for survival.

Jerome Jacobson and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip-club owners, and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’

The murder of Mickey Bryan, a quiet fourth-grade teacher, stunned her small Texas town. Then her husband, a beloved high school principal, was charged with killing her. Did he do it, or had there been a terrible mistake?

Nathan Heller on what his family’s story says about a city of romantic delusions and hazardous fortunes.

Twelve years later, past and present residents of Arlington, Tex., are still reckoning with Amber Wyatt‘s story.

Anna Delvey, born Anna Sorokin, seemed to be an up-and-coming New York socialite. Now she’s charged with grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and theft of services.

The answer to the disparity in death rates has everything to do with the lived experience of being a black woman in America.

Inside the investigation of three deaths at Mississauga’s 3635 Pitch Pine Crescent, and the mistakes that devastated a surviving family.