Truth and Justice for Fun and Profit: Collected Reporting

Cleveland is a crazy quilt of bold schemes, failed dreams, and colorful characters in this collection of Michael Heaton’s best newspaper and magazine stories.

Heaton reported on as wide a range of subjects as any active Cleveland journalist. On any day his byline could appear in any section of the region’s newspaper of record, The Plain Dealer, where he was a featured columnist and reporter.

To get the story he put on boxing gloves and entered the ring; accompanied a heroin addict while he shoplifted, fenced stolen goods, scored smack and shot up; and driven in a demolition derby. He interviewed chefs and coroners, prosecutors and perpetrators, gypsies and priests.

And he delivered each story with a sense of style—and a sense of humor.

Michael Heaton was an award-winning columnist and reporter. His byline appeared regularly in The Plain Dealer from 1987 to 2018. Prior to that he was a critic and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and a reporter for People magazine. He was co-author of the New York Times bestseller "Motherhood and Hollywood" with his sister, actress Patricia Heaton, and co-author of "I’ll Be Right Back," the autobiography of TV host Mike Douglas. He was the scriptwriter for the 2012 movie "The Christmas Heart." He was the son of legendary Plain Dealer sportswriter Chuck Heaton.

Joe Eszterhas was twenty-five years old and had been with the Cleveland Plain Dealer for three years when he co-wrote this book. In 1968 he received the Cleveland Press Club Award and the Ohio Associated Press Award for his coverage of the Silver Bridge disaster. In 1969 he wrote the Life magazine account of the My Lai massacre; in 1970 he received the Associated Press Award for his six-part series. He was a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine from 1971 to 1975. He has written screenplays for several major Hollywood movies, including Basic Instinct in 1992, and has written several other nonfiction books, including Hollywood Animal, an autobiography, and Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith.