The talk will address the ways in which the fascination with true crime narratives is growing to the extent that these texts (books, films, TV, podcasts etc.) are now the fastest growing area of the crime fiction genre, itself now the most popular type of fiction, worldwide. Going back to the inception of the crime fiction genre in the mid C19th, it will demonstrate that the public fascination with true crime is nothing new, and argue that, through recent exposure in high profile cases, true crime narratives are now both influencing and highlighting legal processes in real life criminality and justice.
Dr Fiona Peters is Reader in Crime Fiction at Bath Spa University, UK. She is the editor of the new Crime Fiction Studies journal (Edinburgh University Press), the Director of the International Crime Fiction Association and its associated conference series Captivating Criminality. She has published extensively in the area of crime fiction studies, her 2011 monograph was Anxiety and Evil in the Writings of Patricia Highsmith (Routledge) and is currently writing Crime Fiction: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2019) and True Crime Narratives: Evil, Obsession and Fascination (Routedge USA).