True crime
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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True crime is a non-fiction genre in which the author uses an actual crime and real people as a point of departure. They can be fairly factual or highly speculative and heavily fictionalized depending on the writer. Some works are "instant books" produced quickly to capitalize on popular demand while others may reflect years of thoughtful research and inquiry. Still others revisit historic crimes (or alleged crimes) and propose solutions, such as books examining political assassinations, well-known unsolved murders, or deaths of celebrities.
Purportedly factual accounts of actual crimes have a long history. The works of author Yseult Bridges about British cases; Inspector Dew's I Caught Crippen (1938); and the Notable British Trials series were all works that can be regarded as true crime. Jack Webb's 1958 The Badge (recently republished with an introduction by James Ellroy) embodies elements of the modern true crime story, but Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is usually credited with establishing the modern novelistic style of the genre.
Many works in this genre explore (and sometimes exploit) high-profile, sensational crimes such as the JonBenét Ramsey killing, the O.J. Simpson case, and the Pamela Smart murder, while others are devoted to more obscure slayings. Prominent true crime accounts include Helter Skelter by lead Manson family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry; Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, about Ted Bundy, and Joe McGinniss' Fatal Vision.
The modern genre, which most often focuses on murders, is frequently marked by biographical treatment of the criminals and victims, attempts to explain criminal psychology, and descriptions of police investigations and trial procedures.
Although true crime books often center on sensational, shocking, or strange events, a secondary part of their appeal is social realism that describes events too mundane, risqué or deviant for other non-fiction media, including descriptions of the lifestyles of working-class or socially marginal people.
After the success of the movie The Silence of the Lambs, a subgenre of true crime has focused on methods of "profiling" of unidentified criminals, especially serial killers.
