Women's appetite for explicit crime fiction is no mystery

Brutally detailed murder stories appeal to female readers both for the real anxieties they tap into, and for their metaphorical resonances

Melanie McGrath - Monday 30 June 2014 theguardian.com

Metaphorical force … police chalk outline of murder victim. Photograph: Alamy

At this year's Theakstons Old Peculier crime writing festival in Harrogate, roughly 80% of the audience (and half the 80 or so authors appearing) will be women. We will also make up around 80% of those signing up for writing workshops where aspiring crime writers learn their craft. Though only a third of published authors in almost all genres are women and media outlets scandalously persist in reviewing disproportionately more books by men, women have long made up the majority of adult readers and, increasingly, both as readers and writers, we are turning to crime.

Women love crime fiction, and not just in its cosy, sanitised, Midsomer Murders version. The trend towards ever-more explicit accounts of murder, rape and torture in crime novels, often involving a female victim, is led not by men but by women. Why?
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