Make Mine MURDER but Hold the Fava Beans

The sibilant hiss of Hannibal Lector’s voice as he toys with the young female FBI agent chills the bone. “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti,” he says with a placid calm, like a man explaining an inordinate fondness for foie gras with truffles, Then, there’s that…that…slurp.

The moment in the movie Silence of the Lambs is terrifying, a glimpse into an inexplicable evil so disturbing that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in alarm, like they do when I’m alone in the house on a dark night and I hear a loud clunk that can’t be the cat.

I love it.

My friend Berat says I’m sick, and she’s a psychiatrist, so she should know. But I like murder.

A glance at my bookshelf reveals-among the obligatory art books and health guides-several hundred books about murder, Widow’s Web, The Von Bulow Affair, Blind Faith, Disturbed Ground, and Freed to Kill, all true stories about murders. Then there’s the textbook section: Sexual Homicides: Patterns and Motives, and

Clues! A History of Forensic Detection. And fiction: The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, various Agatha Christies, Tony Hillermans, and Elmore Leonards.

I like murder in unusual places solved by unusual detectives-like the Australian series featuring Bony, the half-white, half-aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte. I even read books about cats who solve murders (The Cat Who Saw Red by Lillian Braun, one in a series). When Scott Turow published Presumed Innocent, I thought he should have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

At the box office or in the aisles of the video store, given a choice between a love story and a film about murder, I’ll pick the murder every time. (Unless Mel Gibson is the star. Though, come to think of it, most of his movies are about murder, even Hamlet. ) The only two TV shows I watch every week-“Law and Order” and “Mystery”-are about…you guessed it.

To say that this fascination has spilled over to my career is an understatement. For six or seven years now, I’ve written mostly about murder, long investigative stories that try to dig to the heart of a crime.

Of course I know that murder-the taking of someone’s life-is a sad and terrible thing. Years of talking to the families of real victims has taught me that the ripples from a crime of that magnitude go on forever, that those wounds never really heal. I often remind myself of that, trying always to be aware of the grief they feel.

And yet, I’m fascinated.

Is this weird? Berat thinks so, and so do other writers I know who cringe at the idea of writing about murder. I admit I feel a twinge of guilt when I read a news report about a murder and my instant reaction is, wow, this would make a great story.

But I know I’m not alone in my passion for murder. Millions of people share my intrigue. (This magazine once had an editorial assistant who collected autopsy reports; I always made her a copy when I had to get one.) Certainly the grim popularity of the O.J. Simpson trial proves that murder plus celebrity equals great ratings.

Maybe one reason is that life is the ultimate value-nothing could have more of a consequence or meaning than taking it away.

But cracking a murder also presents the ultimate problem-solving task. Putting together the bits and pieces of evidence -DNA, lands and grooves on bullets, toxicology tests, autopsies-we use the physical world to glimpse inside the minds of those who cross over, who violate the ultimate taboo. Murder is one of the oldest stories in the world. Remember Cain and Abel?

Maybe it’s a way to peer into our own hearts. Wondering “How could she do that?” forces me to ask “Could I ever do that?” The heart of darkness is my own.

But liver with fava beans? Yuck.