James Durkin Frederick (November 22, 1971 – July 31, 2014) was an American author and journalist who was an editor for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine. He was born in

Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest ...

and graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1993. In 2010, he wrote the best-selling book ''Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death'', about the Mahmudiyah killings. He was married to ''Time'' senior editor Charlotte Greensit, whom he met while stationed in London. Frederick left Time in 2013, then settled in San Francisco to start a company, Hybrid Vigor Media.

Publications

* Jenkins, Charles Robert, and Jim Frederick. ''The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. *Frederick, Jim. ''Black Hearts: One Platoon's Plunge into Madness in the Triangle of Death and the American Struggle in Iraq''. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. ** His friend

Ken Kurson Kenneth Kurson (born 1968) is an American political consultant, writer, journalist, and former musician, who was editor-in-chief of ''The New York Observer'' between 2013 and 2017. In 2020 he was charged by federal prosecutors with cyberstalking ...

called this book "the single best book ever written about the war in Iraq and one of the greatest war books ever." The Commandant of Cadets at the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

made it the inaugural book in his personal leadership development book club for cadets and told Frederick that he would be considered a lifetime friend of West Point.

Death

On July 31, 2014, Frederick died at the age of 42 in the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, of cardiac arrest and

arrhythmia Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...

References

1971 births 2014 deaths American war correspondents Time (magazine) people Columbia College (New York) alumni People from Lake Forest, Illinois {{US-journalist-1970s-stub