Janet Malcolm, a longtime writer for The New Yorker, who was known for her piercing judgments, her novel-like nonfiction and a provocative moral certainty that cast a cold eye on journalism and its practitioners, died June 16 in a hospital in Manhattan. She was 86.

Over a 55-year career, Ms. Malcolm produced deeply reported, exquisitely crafted articles, essays and books, most devoted to her interests in literature, biography, photography, psychoanalysis and true crime. Her writing was precise and analytical; her gaze missed nothing, The New York Times said.