Cruel Tales
Short stories based on major criminal cases
Criminal cases, which reveal the darkest and most unexpected aspects of human nature, are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for novelists and short story writers.
What we offer here are not journalistic narratives of established facts or judicious commentaries by legal experts. These are works of creative nonfiction, and they are good stories. Some are so unbelievable that you might think them to be fiction, but the authors promise that these tales are not only based on real facts, as many novels are, they also faithfully represent the facts. The authors do not to invent a tale from a true story, but rather tell that true story as thoroughly and authentically as possible based on the facts of the case.
This approach offers two advantages:
- To introduce the reader to real people and real circumstances, without sensationalizing or sugar-coating the facts; to give readers insight into human behavior and to help them reflect on the motivations of criminals and the real sources of evil in our world.
- To require the authors to analyze their characters on a deep level, to put themselves in their protagonists’ skins. In these stories, the author cannot be the center of the narrative; instead, the author fades away behind the characters and is constantly transforming into something new.
Obviously, each short story requires lengthy and tireless documentary work. For a book-length work, there are tons of documents to review and study. However, none of this hard work should appear in the text. All that should come through are fascinating true stories for the reader to enjoy.
Tales of true yet cruel deeds are the focus of this collection. Each criminal case is presented in the form of a short story, and the stories are grouped by theme or by geographic region.
Here are some of our collections of cruel tales:
