DO TRUE CRIME BOOKS DO ANYBODY GOOD?
I asked myself this question often when I first started in this genre. Yes, absolutely! Sometimes people turn their noses up at true crime writing and readers wonder if there’s something wrong with them for finding this subject so interesting. My readers tend to be very gentlepeople; it’s just that we are all tremendously curious about what makes some babies grow up to be savage criminals and others law-abiding citizens. If we don’t know what causes aberrant behavior, we will never be able to prevent it. I write about it because I love to, because it’s my job, and because I’m curious about psychopathology, too. But I also want to help victims, their families, and to save potential victims. Of all the causes I support, the groups that grab my attention are those that support battered and abused women and children. I didn’t set out to write about battered women (or, in some cases, battered men), and yet my last four books have been about emotional and physical abuse that ended in horror.
