Antifreez injection in the heart

Seven books about maniacs

How thrillers are arranged about serial killers, what are their advantages and disadvantages, what novels of non-fiction about maniacs have come out recently-read in the text of Gorky.

How to write an art book about a maniac?

Writing an ordinary triller detective, apparently, is easy. There are only four ingredients:

1. You take a brilliant investigator.

2. The investigator should have a personal injury (the death of a family member is perfect) and a depressive, but responsible attitude.

3. You add to the main character of a friend-investigator, not so tragic hero, but also contentedly smart, and you can add a stupid one-within the rational-police.

4. Finally, the main thing: a terrible and absurd murder, the circumstances of which can not be explained from the point of view of the logic of an ordinary person.

It seems that this recipe is so effective that with its help you can create an endless series of detectives about the same detective with his non -inflammatory life anxiety and non -inflammatory killers. Both publishers and readers will enjoy new investigations.

So, for example, the detectives of Samuel Bjork and Robert Brynza are arranged (it is important to say that the first writer is much more interested in the first writer). At Bjork, the very main character is Mia Krueger, who lost the twin sister and sitting on antidepressants, and at Brynsza-Erica Foster, who died during one of the special operations. Both main investigators are women who involuntarily encounters the idea of ​​the target audience of these books. Mia has a colleague Holger Munk - the eldest in rank, but not so brilliant. Erica has an assistant Kate Moss, brave and smart, but not as brave and smart as Erica. The MII and Munk department interfere with the leadership, now and then insisting on the removal of MII from the assignment due to her mental imbalance. Murders in the tie, as befit, is strange and unusual. In a word, everything is exactly the recipe.

However, even in the series about maniacs there are criminals-not-maniacs. For example, Erica Foster in Cold Blood is trying to find the one who breaks the face to people beyond recognition, dissects them and fuses them in the suitcase. So, sorry for the spoiler, but it will not be a maniac at all.

What are good (or bad) detectives about maniacs?

In general, it is very curious to monitor how unobvious crime is unraveling. Especially when it comes to something like this: in the mountain lake, a corpse of a ballerina was found, killed by an injection of the antifreeze in the heart (“Boy in the Far Issue”, S. Bjork). The reader has the opportunity to plunge into the stream of consciousness of the ingenious investigator, who jugles evidence and coincidences and in some half-magically comes to unraveling. As in a regular detective, the reader experiences excitement, which intensifies, as the element behind the element becomes a clear picture of a terrifying crime.

Only one thing embarrasses in all this: if you want to really understand the motivation of maniac actions, such literature is definitely not suitable. In the reviewed books, they appear to some eccentrics that make up their killings with enviable exoticism and sophistication, certainly filling all the action with some hidden meaning. For example, in “I travel alone” the criminal/criminal kills preschool girls, puts them in doll dresses, collects school backpacks and hangs on a tree, leaving some figure on the victim’s nail. And these actions, of course, have a deep meaning, hidden in the psychological injuries of the killer. But in life everything is a little bit, and sometimes even very differently.

What to read about maniacs if the phenomenon itself is interesting?

Maniacs live among us and can lead a completely normal way of life, be respected members of society and even participate in charity. Perhaps this is precisely the most chilling circumstance: unlike a green alien with ears-pipe, a maniac in a crowd of people cannot be identified.

Most of the murders investigated by the police are committed by family members or close acquaintances. This allows investigators to quickly find the guilty: motives are often transparent, the murder itself is completely hastily and inept. With serial killers, the situation is completely different. The famous serial killer, known as the Zodiac, is still not identified, that is, it is quite possible that he still walks at large. Moreover, in the history of maniacs there were also those that loved to observe the investigation, visiting, for example, by the police conferences. Carlon Gary, a “stranger shutter” from Columbus, even twisted an affair with his wife Sheriff, investigating his crime.

Of particular interest are conversations with serial killers. The recorded conversations with the most famous criminals are in the books of “serial killers” by Joel Norris and “I am the serial killer” of Mickey Knox and John Douglas. It’s scary to read them, because the “customary” of the killers is visible: the maniac is also capable of putting thoughts into words, seeing causal relationships, like everyone else, moreover, he also knows what is bad and what is good.

What is wrong with them then? There is definitely no definite answer. Norris notes that maniacs are characterized by significant damage to the frontal lobe or the limbic part of the brain. Neuropathologists associate these brain anomalies with the inability to control cruelty. Knox and Douglas indicate a correlation between a dysfunctional family, violence experienced in childhood, and unjustified cruelty in adulthood. In any case, both books give a fairly clear idea of ​​what a real maniac is, what circumstances could lead him to this disease (yes, this is still a disease) and by what criteria you can try to calculate it.

What to read about maniacs if real investigations are interesting?

Studies of psychotherapists and doctors allowed to learn a lot about the nature of serial killers. Over the past 20 years, forensics have stepped far ahead. As the DNA analysis technology improves, it became possible not only much more efficiently and faster to catch criminals, but also to re -investigate the long -closed cases.

It was this, albeit amateurly, that the American Michelle Maknamara took up. Since childhood, she was interested in unsolved matters, and at some point she was completely captured by crimes committed by a “killer from the Golden State”.

In the 1970-1980s on the California coast there was a wave of incredibly cruel rape and murders. Often the murder was “paired”: the maniac made his way to the bedroom of a married couple at night and woke them with a bright light of the lantern. Then he forced his wife to tie her husband, tied his wife himself, raped her, and then killed a couple. Of course, at the time of the commission of crimes, the fact that this is all one person was only an assumption, because a simply identical scheme of crime is not one hundred percent evidence. Moreover, sometimes the offender retreated from this model - for example, killed single women or left his victims alive.

In the book “I will disappear in the darkness. The case of the “killer from the Golden State” ”, which was added and published by close Michelle after her sudden death in 2016, she talks about how the crimes were investigated in the 1970s and 1980s and how already in our time it became clear that all the murders and rape was committed by one person. The dedication and even the obsession with which Michelle was engaged in the case of the “killer from the Golden State” is impressive.

List of books mentioned in the text:

Joel Norris. They say serial killers. Five stories of maniacs. M.: Algorithm, 2019. Translation by O. Kutumin

John Douglas, Mickey Knox. I am a serial killer. Revelations of the great maniacs. M.: Homeland, 2018

Samuel Bjork. The boy in the light of the headlights. M.: AST, 2019. Translation by M. Nazarova

Samuel Bjork. I travel alone. M.: AST, 2017. Translation by M. Nazarova

Robert Brynsza. Deadly secrets. M.: AST, 2019. Translation S. Khatueva

Robert Brynsza. Cold blood. M.: AST, 2019. Translation of I. Novoseletskaya

Michelle Maknamara. I will disappear in the darkness. M.: AST, 2019. Translation W. SAPSINA