Vulgar Favors (FX American Crime Story Tie-in Edition): The Assassination of Gianni Versace

The basis for the FX true crime series American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, from creator Ryan Murphy and starring Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz, Darren Criss, and Ricky Martin

Two months before Gianni Versace was murdered on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion by Andrew Cunanan, award-winning journalist Maureen Orth was investigating a major story on the serial killer for Vanity Fair. Culled from interviews with more than four hundred people and insights from thousands of pages of police reports, Orth tells the complete story of Cunanan, his unwitting victims, and the moneyed, hedonistic world in which they lived . . . and died.

In fascinating detail, she reveals how Cunanan met his superstar victim, why police and the FBI repeatedly failed to catch Cunanan, and why other victims’ families stonewalled the investigation, as well as the controversial findings of the Versace autopsy report. Here is a gripping odyssey that races across America—from California’s wealthy gay underworld to modest Midwestern homes of families mourning the loss of their sons to South Beach and its unapologetic decadence. Vulgar Favors is at once a masterwork of investigative journalism and a riveting account of a sociopath, his crimes, and the mysteries he left along the way.

Praise for Vulgar Favors

“[An] exhaustive deconstruction of Andrew Cunanan’s five murders . . . The breadth and thoroughness of Orth’s research are often staggering.”—The New York Times

“Fascinating . . . ripe with chilling detail . . . paints a disturbing picture.”—Entertainment Weekly

“A fascinatingly detailed account.”—USA Today

“It will hook you from the first page and never let you go.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth might be called the complete Cunanan. . . . She [has] an indefatigable hunger to know everything.”—Chicago Tribune

“A detailed page-turner.”—St. Paul Pioneer Press

“An exceptionally good account of suspected serial killer Andrew Cunanan’s spree in 1997 . . . Orth tells this twisted story with grace and courage.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Orth has an inviting, readable style.”—Oakland Tribune

“The definitive book on the July 15, 1997 murder of Versace.”—Sun-Sentinel

“An exhilarating journalistic chronicle of Cunanan’s crime and flight . . . The book is charged with adrenaline and the pages just seem to turn themselves.”—Lesbian and Gay New York