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What Is The Human Obsession With Murder?
Thou shalt not kill we are told.
But we do. And we love to read about murder. We love to view TV series and movies on murder. When a gruesome murder or a mass murder occurs, the more lurid the story, the more newspapers and magazines are sold.
I am always amazed at the number of books in our local library where the plot revolves around a murder. Not just an old fashioned Agatha Christie murders but many serial killer stories or killers murdering their victims in horrendous ways. And these are fiction books. Then there are the real-life murders.
What do people get out of these stories? Is it some perverse curiosity? Is it a morbid fascination with murder? If so, with what? What exactly is our enthrallment with murder and why are so many books, both fiction and non-fiction, written on the subject? I would say at a rough guess and please correct me if I am way off here that about 90 percent of all novels involve a murder. I am an avid reader and have a well-stocked local library just a few minutes walk away. I also have a few E-books on my smartphone at any given time. I find I am always hard-pressed to find a good novel with no murder in…
