In Cold Blood

A couple of nights ago I was reading part of In Cold Blood, which is really a thrilling, fascinating, and sometimes even funny read.  There's something about it that seems to perfectly capture the American West. 
The way African Americans are depicted is interesting.  They are not an important part of the story, but that's nothing new, as they're usually relegated to the margins of society and art.  But they do come up occasionally.  At one point, one of the killers carries on about how something pays, saying that it's not enough for "a white man could live off."  Wow, basically implying that whites are more deserving of better pay, based solely on their skin.  Great.  Well, they are serial killers, there's no reason to expect that they're going to be enlightened in any other way.  And since serial killers exist because they have a psychological need for power, there's no way to hope they would be thoughtful about privilege and power the way other people might be able to be. 
At one point, they also talk about how the killers came across "a pair of Negro prizefighters driving a lavender Cadillac."  I was happy to be reminded that some African Americans were successful, even in an age where it was probably so hard. 

(Also, can I just say that I love Cadillacs and would probably love a lavender colored one?  I think I would have to come up with a clever name for it.  Maybe Lavender Brown, in reference to the Harry Potter character.) 
Women are interesting too.  At one point, this woman landlord goes on and on to an investigator, telling him that she's "just a dizzy blonde."  She goes on, telling him that she believes him, but that she "wouldn't tell that tale to any brunettes."  I found this weirdly funny.  She sounded like so many female characters in all those old movies.   
The psychology of the serial killers is another thing that is cool to see in the piece.  The narrator comments that a potential victim's laugh reminds one of the killers of his father.  The piece doesn't really talk about what that means, but anyone thoughtful enough can start coming up with theories. 
It's so well written!  At one point, the narrator describes a word as "ominous."  The word?  "OOM."  I usually don't think of "words" like that, but it is.  It even made me think of the Ood in Doctor Who. 
The other thing I found myself thinking as I was reading this was about how Lee Pace played one of the killers in the movie version of the story that came out some years ago.  As I've mentioned here before, I'm a huge fan of Pace, though I haven't seen this movie yet.  I think there's really no choice in the matter now: I'm going to have to. 

Coral Watts

This might come off badly, but I love to read about serial killers.  I think most of this comes from my love of mystery novels.  Anyone who loves mystery novels knows it's because they fancy themselves a detective, and enjoy trying to solve the whoddunit puzzle.  So when I say I love to read about serial killers, it's a love of reading about how the cops caught the guy, and how they did it. 
For example, the BTK killer?  Totally caught because he used a computer at the church he worked at.  There's something enjoyable in knowing that the police lied to him to get him to accidentally reveal himself. 
But today I found the Wikipedia article on Coral Watts.  What's fascinating to me is that he is the suspect in some ninety unsolved murders, but was only convicted on about three of them.  And that people were so desperate to keep him in jail they sent out a national call for evidence against him.  His crimes were terrible and awful, but somehow I take great pleasure in knowing that he served time in jail. 
It's the sort of thing that you would see in a movie, but surprisingly, he's only been featured in two of those real crime tv shows.