Forensic Fetishism in the Modern Thriller

I’ve been reading a lot of articles and blogs lately about the prevalence of what many consider to be gratuitous and one-upmanship gore in modern thrillers and neo-noir/hard-boiled mysteries. The two catch phrases that seem to be getting a lot of attention are torture porn and forensic fetishism.

So I decided to put this question to best-selling suspense author Kay David:

Me: Do you feel that violence in many of today’s thrillers has reached the ‘torture porn’ level? In other words, are writers using graphic scenes for shock value and/or titillation with little regard for plot advancement or characterization?

KD: I'm not offended by the graphic violence in novels because most readers plug their own version of what's happening into the story, no matter what the words on the page say. The writer just sets them off in a certain direction and their imagination takes it from there. Do some writers take it too far? I don't think so but if they do, the reader can always vote with their wallet by not buying the book. The situation is no worse than some writers who use sex scenes to the same end. I'd rather use my imagination there, too, so I simply don't buy those kinds of books. I think there will always be a market for them, however.

Photo: tjlewis