Doing More With Murder

From Crime Reads comes Robert Reuland's RESPECT THE DEAD. WRITE MORE REALISTIC FICTION. One's vanity gets a boost from seeing one's ideas in print. Specifically:

No, I’m not saying we should stop watching murder and reading murder. If anything, we need to watch and read more murder. Apart from its necessary cathartic allure, the depiction of criminal violence stirs us from our wooly complacency to think about ideas that might otherwise seem shopworn or even vaguely embarrassing to discuss—concepts such as truth and justice. Hitchcock said, “One of television’s greatest contributions is that it brought murder back into the home—where it belongs.”

I wanted to do something like this in my novel "One Dead Blonde." I wanted the effects of a murder to be more important than the murder. I hope to get that manuscript back in my hands so I may one day see if I pulled off my intentions.

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