“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”: one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes, a signature combination of insight and wit. You don’t have to believe in a literal hell to know there are demons among us and there always have been.
They are also on our bookshelves in great abundance. We’re fascinated by human wickedness, probably because it’s incomprehensible to most of us and a plague that seems unvanquishable. No wonder we love our heroes and heroines who fight the good fight and save the day, whether in books, comics, or films. They’re aspirational figures and we breathe a sigh of relief when they’re victorious.
The problem of evil has been a central issue in global philosophy and religion for centuries. I’m no theological scholar or philosopher, but my job requires me to spend an inordinate amount of time pondering evil in the secular sense because moral corruption is the foundation upon which all crime fiction is constructed. As the Megadeth slogan goes, killing is my business and I have to know my stuff.
I often wish I believed in a supernatural receptacle for all the horrors in the world, an alpha and omega monster that might be slain once and for all, making world peace attainable without lobotomizing everybody at birth.
It’s so much easier to swallow than the truth: a small percentage of humans who begin life as pure and innocent become the real monsters, whether by nature, nurture, circumstance, or a combination thereof. And they walk around unnoticed until they get caught.
Thankfully, many do—there are only a handful of motives for murder (love, money, revenge, to hide a previous crime) and that makes an investigation a solvable puzzle because the perpetrator is always connected to the victim somehow. And generally, criminals are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
But crime-fighting isn’t foolproof and the bad guys can be smart or just plain lucky. Statistics prove it. According to the FBI, there are two hundred and fifty thousand cold cases and only forty percent have been solved. There aren’t enough detectives in the world to handle the backlog.
Of all these monsters, serial killers are the most horrific and elusive. They are the essence of evil, rare as hen’s teeth, and a source of gruesome fascination. We’re still talking about Jack the Ripper one hundred and forty years later and there are websites devoted to the most twisted murderers in history.
Serials kill for reasons we can’t fathom (and don’t want to,) and target vulnerable and fringe populations that enable them to stay in the shadows. The scariest of them are adept at emulating normalcy. Sometimes they continue their rampages for years or even decades undiscovered and are often only apprehended because they finally make a mistake. They are fodder for nightmares.
A friend’s mother and a fan of my work once fretted, “Traci is such a nice girl, how does she write about all these terrible things?” Good question. I had an idyllic childhood and have led a marvelous life unmarred by crime, yet I’ve always been drawn to the dark side. In part, I think it’s because I was desperate to make sense of something so far beyond my experience and realm of understanding.
The thing is, if you have empathy and are in possession of an honest, moral soul, you can’t make sense of it, but by the time I understood that I was addicted. Crime novels are as fun to read as they are to write. They’re scary, thrilling adrenaline bombs wrapped in glossy covers.
And within the crisp pages of a good book, the thrills and chills are safe. Which is probably how I’m able to sleep at night.
I was musing about all of this creepiness as I prepared for the launch of The Deepest Cut, which is a continuation of the tenth Monkeewrench novel Ice Cold Heart. I’ve never written a sequel before, but I wasn’t quite finished with the story or the villains. And these villains are really nasty dudes, war criminals and total sociopaths.
The more warped a character is, the more challenging they are to write. I also really wanted to reunite with the gang after a five-year hiatus penning the L.A.-set Detective Margaret Nolan series. Boy was it a fun reunion, and what better place to pick up than where I left off?
But the primary driving force behind my return to Monkee Land was reuniting with PJ, my beloved mother, best friend, soul mate, and writing partner until her passing in 2016. I’m never closer to her than when I’m immersed in the world we created together twenty-three years ago.
When I write about our characters, she comes vividly to life again, perching on my shoulder, cracking wise, and laughing. She was a supernova and had the sharpest wit and the most passionate, exuberant soul, but she too was fascinated with the dark side. I guess the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Albert Einstein said that it’s easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man. I agree, but we all keep trying. And maybe one day there will be world peace without lobotomizing everybody at birth.
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