I am thoroughly fed up with psycho serial killers as a plot device.

[scarletwoman]

I've been quite addicted to Police Procedurals/Murder Mysteries/Crime Novels for a number of years, and I've devoured hundreds of books in those genres. However, I've lately realized that I no longer have any patience with the "psycho serial killer" trope - even though many of my favorite authors over the past few years have utilized it.

It's just gotten to be too much. I've come to think of it as a thorougly dishonest cop-out - they might as well be ascribing crimes to aliens from outer space, for all the intellectual honesty that's involved. An author can construct a psycho serial killer to commit any sort of heinous crime they can imagine, and we're just supposed to buy that the world of crime is inhabited by a plethora of sadistic nutcases against whom their hero must do battle. Bah! It's cheap, it's lazy, it's an insult to the reader's intelligence.

Give me a single murder (or two) committed by an ordinary human, that gets solved step-by-step by the protaganist delving into ordinary lives in ordinary communities of ordinary human beings. Nothing showy, nothing gory, just an exploration of the non-psycho human condition that led to some ordinary human being to commit a murder.

From now on I mean to stay away from any book that relies on a psycho serial killer for a plot device.

YMMV.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. I know what you mean.

I have stopped reading many crime novels because I begin to feel as if the world is full of psychopaths. Give me the "Strangers on a Train". I think there are only a few psychopath novels that are worth reading.

I never thought about them being a lazy way to write a novel, but you are right. If you go for the insane killer, anything, even the most ridiculous, can be possible.

[scarletwoman]

2. Thank you. I think the psycho serial killer trope is a cop-out. (so to speak)

You don't have to base it in any kind of reality, you don't have to explore real people and complex relationships, you just make up some totally insane evil-doer with no motive beyond being psycho. It's not that different from fundamentalist religion, where evil is projected onto some kind external supernatural entity, instead of the recognition that all humans have the capacity to engage in "evil" behavior - nothing supernatural about it.

I have stopped reading many crime novels because I begin to feel as if the world is full of psychopaths.

Exactly!

[Chemisse]

3. I've stopped reading these because they are creepy and disgusting.

I really don't want to think there are such people in this world as exist in novelists' imaginations. Maybe there are, but why should I have to tarnish my psyche by reading about every detail of their vile pathology?

[scarletwoman]

5. I totally agree with you about tarnishing the psyche by reading that kind of sick stuff.

I won't watch slasher movies, either. I don't want those images in my consciousness. I have no interest in gore and sadism as "entertainment".

People do commit horrific acts in real life, of course. But I highly doubt that the psycho serial killer type as imagined by certain novelists is at all common.

[libodem]

4. I dislike it very much as well

I recently plugged through an RLStine, book for adults. (she writes for kids) I finished it because I'm compulsive like that but I wish I had just put it down. The violence was graphic and stunning. Totally gratuitous. As with sex the allusion is sexier. I'd rather not read gore. And serial killers as a plot is predictable and done to death. (Little pun action cuz I don't care who I offend either)

Think I'm grumpy today? Ya think?

[scarletwoman]

6. "Done to death" - perfect!

I'm cool with grumpy, nothing wrong with that.

I do like murder mysteries, but only the ones that present a well-crafted puzzle to solve. Just a simple dead body as a starting point, and then the painstaking process of figuring out whodunnit. No long, lingering descriptions of terror and torture, just good solid detective work.

[shenmue]

7. Exactly

I love police procedurals, but badly written serial killer schlock just bores me. I read something by John Lutz and I immediately kicked myself for having spent money on it. The plot devices were so stupid.

[closeupready]

8. I know what you mean - I find this is true in films, too.

Any story with a Nazi angle, too, has been WAY overdone.

I think I'm going to focus now - for the moment - less on fiction and more on non-fiction, as non-fiction can be just as crazy but it really DID happen. In fact, I recently finished a book (can't recall the title now) and when I finished the last page, I was just like, 'OMG, what STUPID book!' And it was stupid because the story was so familiar, had been done so many times before.