I am a huge fan of crime fiction, which has to be one of my favourite genres of all time. The best ever written one in the world of true crime has got to be Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which is largely based on the mass murder of a family in rural Kansas by a pair of dysfunctional boys in the late 1950s. A large part of Capote's book is devoted to the dynamic psychological relationship between the two boys, whose gruesome act of crime could not be performed individually. I like the book because it left me quite quite sick after finishing it.
Historical crime fiction is another favourite, especially those set in the 1800s-1900s. Not sure why, but I guess the Victorian times lend a unique atmosphere, which is so important in making a crime story work. I am reading Caleb Carr's excellent excellent "The Alienist", a novel tracing the investigations by crime psychologist (or in those days "alienist" as people with deviant behavior were referred to as "aliens" and hence medical folks who studied them were known as "alienists") Dr Laszlo Kreizler, NYT crime journalist John Moore and NYPD Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt on a serial killer with a penchant for killing poor immigrant kids. The novel involved a number of real-life characters from Teddy Roosevelt (who later became President of USA) to J.P. Morgan. Carr's harrowing and atmospheric tale delivers such great impact that one could not help but smell the fear in the air amidst pungent whiffs of the grotty Lower East Side alleys.
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