Prologue
This fascination with death, this obsession, this darkness within us all.
This harmlessness of wallowing in the satisfaction in the gruesome deaths of others.
This substitution of personal violent action by the reading about murder in all its variety of guises, its mad axes, its rope nooses, its poisons.
This voyeurism, this pleasure sometimes solitary, sometimes shared.
This amusement, beginning in childhood, near the origins of the book of life.
Who will die first? Who will be the initial victim of the Reaper’s sword, or cache of pills, or drought of food and drink?
And will we stand by and watch all these deaths? Without discomfort, without guilt?
Or might we intervene, play our written parts in all these comings and these goings?
Will we, for instance, poison our mothers or our fathers?
Or will we choose to dispense with our spouses?
If, indeed, we have husbands?
Sometimes, all we need to do is organise a Murder Mystery Weekend to celebrate our father’s birthday, then sit, and watch events unfold.
Or read a book about it all, this madness, this mayhem, and this murder.
Go on, I dare you to.
You know you want to, it’s your guilty secret, all this pampering, this sheer enjoyment of the kill.
