Beating, Knifing, Bludgeoning a Dead Horse

As Gilda Radner’s character, Roseanne Roseannadanna, might say, “What’s all this fuss about cereal killers?”

Sarah Weinman points out Jerome Weeks’ new Book/Daddy blog. One of the new entries there is about the serial killer myth vs. reality--a topic of interest to me and I’m sure to numerous other readers.

Many readers will note (or “violently object to the fact”) that on my Top 10 Favorite Literary Thrillers ..., there’s a passel of writers normally on such lists who don’t appear here: Dennis Lehane, James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos, Robert Parker, Michael Connelly.

A chief reason I have trouble with individual examples from these writers is their reliance on the exotic mastermind serial killer, a device to maintain suspense that is so overused, the killer’s knife hand must be tired by now from murdering every nubile young thing in sight. Even Thomas Harris should have retired Hannibal Lecter after Silence of the Lambs. His follow-up, Hannibal, was a complete botch, a dreadful book.

And the fact is that such serial killers are extremely rare; most are just pathetic screw-ups unable to relate to others without resorting to violence. What makes the serial killer novel worse is its reliance on that other cliché: the profiler or the brilliant detective who must steep himself in violence and madness to understand the killer’s thinking and thus risk his own sanity. Again, a writer has to do something with style and voice or upending these conventions to keep me interested.

What does anyone else think about calling a moratorium on serial killers?--Dick Adler