True Story: murder, memoir, mea culpa Michael Finkel Chatto & Windus, 320pp, £15.99 ISBN 0701176881

''Any fool can tell the truth," said Samuel Butler, "but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well." Try telling that to the New York Times. Michael Finkel wrote a piece on child slavery in the West African cocoa trade for the paper's magazine; the article had a composite character for its leading man. Finkel's editor had changed her mind about the thrust of the story after he had come back from his researches, and in an attempt to give her what she wanted, he blended different people's experiences into one non-existent personality. To anyone familiar with the workings of Fleet Street, Finkel's might seem a minor mis-demeanour, but they order things differently across the pond. Finkel was sacked - publicly sacked. The Times printed an apology for the story in which it reassured readers they would never see his byline in their paper again. Finkel, still in his early thirties and fearful for his future, holed up in his Montana home until the dust settled.

Which is when the phone rang. On the other end of the line was a reporter from the Portland Oregonian. Finkel took a deep breath and readied himself for an inquisition on gimcrack journalism. But the reporter wasn't calling about the cocoa cock-up. He was calling about Chris Longo, a guy who had just been accused of murdering his wife and three children and going on the lam in Mexico under a phoney name - Michael Finkel. Most people would have felt at least momen-tarily wrong-footed by such news, but Finkel, still an instinctive reporter, had only one question to ask: how could he get in touch with the accused?

A letter and a phone call later, Finkel was visiting Longo down at the Lincoln County jail. Although Longo's lawyers had counselled that he talk to no one, he had decided to open up to Finkel, because Longo admired him. Indeed, he hadn't taken Finkel's name in vain. He had long fantasised about being a writer, and Finkel was a writer he enjoyed reading. Finkel, meanwhile, had his own reasons for playing Clarice to Longo's Hannibal Lecter. Though Longo, writes Finkel, "made me feel unnervingly exposed, as if he had the ability to peek into my thoughts", he also sensed in him the chance of salvation. "From the moment the Oregonian reporter had called, I'd had a vague sense that the beginnings of my redemption, both professional and personal, might somehow lie with Longo."

The result of that vague sense is the chill precision of True Story, a book composed largely of Finkel's glosses on the many letters Longo wrote him and the 1,949 pages of their transcribed phone conversations. From them we learn the story of Longo's life: his early years as a Jehovah's Witness; his romantic obsession with a fellow worshipper seven years his senior; his red-roses pursuit of her; his parents' disapproval of their relationship and eventual marriage. The disapproval, I think, is what motivated Longo for the rest of his life outside bars. He was det-ermined to show everyone that he had married well and, more importantly, that his wife had, too.

Largely denied an education by a religion that disapproves of worldly knowledge, Longo's native wit none the less helped him fast-track himself through more than one business. By the age of 24, four years into his marriage, he was the Midwest field manager for a large newspaper distribution outfit. "I was spending my evenings in top-notch restaurants & multi-star hotels, all of my choosing & none of which came out of my pocket," he writes proudly to Finkel. But life on the road entailed too much time away from his family, and a year later he quit the job to set up on his own. Alas, though he had his successes, too few of his debtors paid their bills and Longo's house-cleaning business went belly up. At which point he and the family lit out for the territories, skipping the rent on one apartment after another until that fateful night when . . .

But enough. Finkel writes artfully art-less prose, but his plotting is as cunning as a Hollywood three-acter and it would be unfair of me to give any more away. It is debatable whether his overarching conceit - that by understanding Longo's compulsive inability ever to be truly straightforward he comes to terms with the journalist's occasional need to tweak a story - is strong enough to bear the book's metaphysical load. Certainly his melodramatic change of heart as he draws his narrative to a close was disappointing.

For all True Story's twists and turns, I can't believe I was the first person to see its final shock coming a mile off. Michael Finkel is a true storyteller, but I am still not sure he's being entirely honest with his readers.

Christopher Bray's critical biography of Michael Caine will be published by Faber in September

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