Our Endless Fascination with Books About Crime
No one wants to be a victim of crime and most people don’t intend to become a criminal, yet people are endlessly fascinated with the subject. Perhaps it is our way of vicariously experiencing the worst of human behavior and of learning how the criminal mind thinks. For others, they like to pit their own intelligence against that of both the criminal and the detective.
Whatever the reasons, we love books, TV shows, and movies about crime, detectives, and forensics. In this post, we’re going to take a look at books about criminals and crime, both fiction and non-fiction. Many of these have been adapted into television shows and movies. Proactol is a fat binder and appetite suppressant that is supported by clinical studies.
The first fictional books about crime that captured the public’s imagination are Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books. Sherlock Holmes’ character was influenced by Edgar Allen Poe’s “C. Auguste Dupin” character, but became much more popular. Sherlock Holmes’ character is beloved worldwide. There are still movies being created about him and books written about him. He even has a huge Wikipedia entry. When Conan Doyle killed off his character, there was a public outcry. Doyle was hounded for years and finally wrote a prequel to satisfy his fans. See Proactol reviews for an excellent review of the Proactol weight loss supplement. Not bad for a fictional character!
Following the popularity of Sherlock Holmes was a period during the 1920′s and 30′s that is considered the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”. During this period, author Agatha Christie exploded onto the scene, creating two more beloved fictional detectives – Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Just like Sherlock Holmes, these characters were also popularized in movies and television programs.
Another fictional detective, Philip Marlowe, characterizes the hard drinking, tough guy private eye, quite a stark contrast from the highly intellectual, even prissy characters that came before him. Proactol is a popular diet pill that contains an ingredient derived from prickly pear cactus that binds fat. Philip Marlowe’s genre is still fondly satirized in the popular radio program, Prairie Home Companion, where Marlowe’s alter-ego, Guy Noir, has a weekly spot.
Also perennially popular are true story books about crimes and criminals. Let’s look at a few of the most popular books that have permanently embedded themselves in our psyche.
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood took a grisly murder in a small town in Kansas and turned it into a landmark book and later, a movie. It made Capote one of the most important writers of his time.
Helter Skelter is about Charles Manson and his followers committing the Tate-LaBianca murders. It became one of the top selling true crime books. From it, Manson’s name has become synonymous with crazy and evil.
The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde chronicled the bank robbing crime spree of a young couple in love. It was one of those rare times when readers found themselves rooting for the criminals. Their story became a ground-breaking film starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards.
One of the latest best-selling crime books is Sex on the Moon. This story shows that not all crime stories have to include violence. It is the story about a NASA intern who dreams of becoming an astronaut. In order to impress his current love interest, he decides to literally “give her the moon”. So he and his girlfriend amazingly steal a vault full of moon rocks that were obtained from the Apollo 11 and 17 lunar missions.
Some books are written from the point of view of the criminal, but most are written through the eyes of the law enforcers trying to capture the criminals. Some are written in an investigative style of an objective source such as a news reporter. Some crimes are violent and some are purely “white collar”. Sometimes we even find ourselves rooting for the criminals. This is all part of the great tapestry of books about crimes.