True crime (genre)

True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.

The crimes most commonly include murder, with tales of serial killers dominating the genre (about 40% in a 2002 survey), but true crime works have also focused on other subjects, for instance policemen memoirs, and more recently reality police TV shows. Depending on the writer, true crime can adhere strictly to well-established facts in journalistic fashion, or can be highly speculative. Some true crime works are "instant books" produced quickly to capitalize on popular demand; these have been described as "more than formulaic" and hyper-conventional. Others may reflect years of thoughtful research and inquiry and may have considerable literary merit. Still others revisit historic crimes (or alleged crimes) and propose solutions, such as books examining political assassinations, well-known unsolved murders, or the deaths of celebrities.

Helter Skelter (1974), the true story of the Manson murders by Vincent Bugliosi, is the biggest selling true crime book in publishing history; Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966) is number two.

According to Joyce Carol Oates:

Accounts of true crime have always been enormously popular among readers. The subgenre would seem to appeal to the highly educated as well as the barely educated, to women and men equally. The most famous chronicler of true crime trials in English history is the amateur criminologist William Roughead, a Scots lawyer who between 1889 and 1949 attended every murder trial of significance held in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, and wrote of them in essays published first in such journals as The Juridicial Review[[The Juridical Review]] and subsequently collected in best-selling books with such titles as Malice Domestic, The Evil That Men Do, What Is Your Verdict?, In Queer Street, Rogues Walk Here, Knave's Looking Glass, Mainly Murder, Murder and More Murder, Nothing But Murder, and many more…. Roughead's influence was enormous, and since his time "true crime" has become a crowded, flourishing field, though few writers of distinction have been drawn to it.

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Wikipedia