True-crime stories used to keep me awake nights.
Truman Capote’s classic “In Cold Blood”; Ann Rule, writing about her old friend, serial killer Ted Bundy, in “The Stranger Beside Me”: These were the gateways to an addiction that left me more nervous about violent crime — not to mention the possibility that casual acquaintances might be homicidal psychopaths — than I had any right to be statistically.
When I eventually kicked the habit and returned to novels, I breathed easier. Turns out I’m fine with murder mysteries as long as they’re fictional.
On television, I learned to avoid those “48 Hours” episodes that might trigger a relapse, and if I was watching the Investigation Discovery channel, you can bet it was work-related. Because I don’t think it’s an accident that the network of “Evil Twins” and “Deadly Women” offers a prize for the “ID Addict of the Month.”
But then true-crime TV went upscale, and I was forced to pay attention.
A millionaire murder suspect became an unlikely HBO star in Andrew Jarecki’s “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” (and ended up under arrest). The success — and quality — of the Peabody Award-winning first season of the podcast “Serial,” and of shows such as Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” and FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” inspired new long-form projects, including NBC’s “Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders,” an eight-part series.