Readers Jack and Mary Branson site

The Readers

Reader Who reads true crime? Well, since we’re big fans of the genre ourselves, we believe true crime readers are highly intelligent, introspective people.

We know that more women read true crime than men (about 60/40).

And we’ve noticed that most true crime readers are addicts. Once you close that first book and shiver, reading true crime can be addictive. Websites and blogs are continually asking and answering, “What’s new in true crime?” because true crime readers are loyal to the genre.

They’re emotional. They want to suffer with the victim and his or her family and even with the criminal. They want to experience strong emotions, even unpleasant ones. They like extremes. They’re unlikely to prefer vanilla anything.

They’re thinkers who enjoy analyzing how investigators identify and capture criminals. They like CSI details. They’re more comfortable with blood spatters, DNA, and blunt trauma than bicycle rides and dewy meadows.

They have a strong sense of justice, and they like to see the good guy win in the end. But they want to doubt his success for at least 150 pages.

They’re practical. They realize that a fiction writer can create plot twists and tie up loose ends with ease. But they want to know that what they’re reading came from a criminal’s mind, not a writer’s imagination. Knowing the story is true is what drives them to read. They know that truth is stranger, more macabre, and therefore more compelling than fiction. They’re smart people who want truth.

They’re risk takers, even if just between the pages of a book. When they were 10 years old and someone asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they may well have said police officer, firefighter, or lion tamer.

We believe they’re caring people. They’re not indifferent to the gruesome details they read. As they experience the agony of missing, tortured, and murdered people, they don’t forget that these victims were real individuals whose potential was cut short by tormented and sadistic people. And with a corner of their heart, they realize that the perpetrator was once bursting with potential, too. They want to know who stole that potential and created a criminal.

And they’re well-rounded people who live life to the fullest. They experience every emotion to the max—horror, fear, pain, love, joy, laughter. The people who like to read about death are very much alive, and we’re glad to have them as our readers.

--Jack and Mary

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