Into the Badlands: America and its Crime Writers

In the summer of 1989 John Williams embarked on an epic journey through a deeply troubled USA.

A right-wing Republican administration seemed bent on rolling back the advances of the civil rights era; the Supreme Court were partially reversing the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion; criminals from the Central Park rapist to the serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey were all over the news.

Who did Williams turn to make sense of all this? America’ s crime writers – that’ s who. He talked to...