Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime

Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime explores the wide-ranging genre of true crime writing and outlines the surprising literary lineage with a variety of writers – many of the highest quality – who have dedicated themselves to, or occasionally dabbled in, the form over the past four centuries.

Neil Root also analyses the key elements for effective true crime narrative writing, and the wider ethical implications and sensitivities unique to the style. Finally, it offers insights into fifteen of the best true crime writers since the 1960s and their seminal works in the Modern Masters section, taking in the different subject matters, approaches and methods of those leading practitioners in both book and feature writing forms.

True crime is under-represented in literary criticism. Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime aims to redress that situation, acting as both a succinct primer and a highly readable critical guide.

About the author:

Neil Root has published six true crime books including The Murder Gang: Fleet Street’s Elite Group of Crime Reporters in the Golden Age of Tabloid Crime (2018), Gone: The Disappearance of Claudia Lawrence (2013), Frenzy! How the Tabloid Press Turned Three Evil Serial Killers into Celebrities (2012) and Twentieth Century Spies (2010). He writes crime news and feature articles for national newspapers and magazines and contributes to true crime documentaries. He has also published three works of literary criticism for Greenwich Exchange, focusing on the works of Aldous Huxley, James Baldwin and Truman Capote. He lives in London.

102  pages

ISBN: 978-1-910996-22-5