Inky Odds

Bat Conroy—cut him and he’d bleed ink, he’s a born newspaperman. Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid—the greatest American journalists of the 20th century all made their names as war correspondents, but none of them would have beat out Bat Conroy to a good story.

Which makes it that much more mystifying—and aggravating—when an unknown writer, filing under the byline Perry Lane, scoops Bat on every story that comes along. Bat’s always been the go-to reporter covering the Japanese...