ARTE Distribution

Bundy was the first media serial killer to shock America with his charming persona. Ann Rule, a former court reporter who worked with him for over 10 years, wrote The Stranger Beside Me, an intimate biography in which she explores her shock, dismay, and guilt. 

Ann Rule, who was then a single mother and a rookie journalist, shared nights with Bundy at a suicide crisis hotline in Seattle. When young women start going missing in the area, she starts investigating, unaware that the culprit could be this friend she’s working with. Confronted with this horrifying revelation, Rule then turns her book into a hybrid work that combines investigative journalism and introspection.
 

Who? When? How? Why? This series immerses us in the chaos at the dark heart of crime fiction, taking us on journey through the labyrinthine workings of the whodunnit, with many a shudder along the way.

Nowadays, one published novel in four is a "roman noir", a "thriller" or a "detective story". How did crime fiction come to be so popular that it is now a universal language everyone can understand? 
 
Through interviews with present-day creators of crime fiction, Part 1 of Anatomy of Crime Fiction analyses the fateful trio of the victim, the murderer and the detective, piecing together a profile of the 3 emblematic figures who provide the starting-point for all good whodunnits, while Parts 2 and 3 explore locations and plots. 
 

Some crimes have become sensational news stories and their memories are now part of our popular culture. From Jack the Ripper to Roswell and Lady Di, each episode revisits a page of our shared history.

Sensational news stories of violent crimes, accidents and suicides act as intermittent reminders of how minor or major transgressions can wreck our lives. Each episode in this series revisits a fascinating page of our shared history, meticulously decoding and deconstructing a sensational news item that was unjustly disdained by historians and generally left to the sensationalist press.

This first episode focuses on the notorious trio of victim, criminal and investigator. Contemporary creative artists provide their own personal accounts, shedding light on the emblematic figures present in all strong plots.

Authors Caryl Férey and Michael Connelly, filmmakers Michael Mann and Olivier Marchal, showrunners Anne Landois and David Simon, cartoonist Juanjo Guarnido and gamer David Cage guide us through the fantastical wanderings of suspense, which underwent an invigorating renewal in the early 1990s with the Scandinavian wave.

Having focused on the victim-criminal-investigator trio, the series then blends into the background. This episode analyses the crucial importance of location in the DNA of any self-respecting thriller.

Whether located in grimy backwaters, rain-swept streets or luxury apartments, the setting dictates the content of the narrative, reflecting the authors’ social perspective. For many authors, the backdrop is a character in its own right.

After the victim-criminal-investigator trio and the crime scene, the third part of Anatomy of crime fiction sets out to investigate the genre’s narrative mechanisms. Where do the addictive thriller plots come from?

Their stories draw on the most sordid realities, often inspired by news items, which are endless sources of fiction. But many authors are intent on following the evolution of our world, giving new life to their imaginations in digital universes. Social networks, the dark web, computer hacking and cybercrimes are all rich creative realms. A generation is emerging, as dark as in the past, but with endless new levels of reality.