---
It was ever thus. In 1946, George Orwell famously wrote his essay
Decline of the English Murder, suggesting that the British have long derived a callous (and not quite proper) enjoyment from high profile killings.
In Orwell's day pre-pizza, pre-telly the grim details were spelt out at length (by court reporters with fluent short-hand) in the News of the World and read avidly over cups of tea after Sunday lunch.
But much remains the same today: good murder stories true and fictional have always relied upon stereotypes. Sex was almost always a power motive and, ideally, wrote Orwell, "the murderer should be a little man of the professional class... living an intensely respectable life somewhere in the suburbs..."
But surely one thing has changed since the 40s? With the technology at their disposal, life for real detectives must today be easier than it was when Orwell wrote.
Yes and no: the line between fiction and fact is now so blurred that all of us - the police also watch TV - believe it must be easy to nail the killer. It isn't, as the continuing inquiry into the cruel death of Jo Yeates reminds us.