Hillel Levin's reporting has appeared in The Nation, Playboy, New York magazine, Monthly Detroit magazine, Metropolitan Detroit magazine, and Chicago magazine. He was executive editor of Metropolitan Detroit and editor of Chicago magazine. In 1984, he wrote Grand Delusions: The Cosmic Career of John De Lorean (Viking). In 2004, he wrote When Corruption Was King (Carroll & Graf) with Robert Cooley about Cooley's central role in the FBI investigation of mob influence on Chicago's courts and political system. In 2007, for Playboy, he wrote "Boosting the Big Tuna," about the burglars who broke into the home of Tony Accordo, the long-time leader of Chicago's mob. His 2010 book, In With the Devil, which he wrote with James Keene, was about Keene's undercover mission to crack a serial killer in a federal prison and was the basis for the Apple TV+ series Black Bird.