What a gift. This page is briefly stained by my tears of gratitude. Novelists don’t usually have it so good, do they, when something real happens (something unified, dramatic, and pretty saleable), and they just write it down? Martin Amis, London Fields
Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. G H Lewes, The Physiology of Common Life, 1859
Here’s a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible or his life – possessive, even. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p46
I rammed the bottle down. The glass ate his bone. I rammed it three times into the crown of his skull, smashing through to his brains. It's a good, strong bottle, Johnnie Walker Black – well worth its resale value. ibid. p264
Why, I can smile, and murder whilst I smile. William Shakespeare, III Henry VI III ii 182
I’ll find a day to massacre them all. William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus I i 447, Tamora to Saturnius
Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
And of that paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads ...
Let me grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it,
And in that paste let their vile heads be baked. ibid. V ii 185-189 & 197-200
Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred
’Tis true, ’tis true, witness my knife’s sharp edge. ibid. V iii 59-63, revealing heads
Can the son’s eye behold his father bleed?
There’s meed for meed, death for a deathly deed. ibid. V iii 64-65, Lucius kills Saturnius
What’s worse than murderer that I may name it? William Shakespeare, Richard Duke of York V v 58, Queen Margaret
Truth will come to light; murder cannot he hid long – a man’s son may, but in the end truth will out. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice II ii 74-76, Lancelot to Gobbo
All is not well;
I doubt some foul play. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I ii 254
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes. ibid. I ii 256
Hamlet: O God!
Ghost: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Hamlet: Murder!
Ghost: Murder most foul. ibid. I v 24-27
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,
No reckoning made but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible! ibid. I v 74
Though in the trade of war I have slain men
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ th’ conscience
To do no contrived murder. William Shakespeare, Othello I ii 1-3
Do it not with poison. Strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated. ibid. IV i 202-203, Iago
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars.
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out her light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me, but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethian heat
That can light relume. When I have plucked thy rose
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It needs must wither. ibid. V ii @1
That death’s unnatural that kills for loving. ibid. V ii 45, Desdemona
Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight. ibid. V ii 87, Desdemona
Why, how should she be murdered? ibid. V ii 135, Othello
An honourable murderer, if you will
For naught did I in hate, but all in honour. ibid. V ii 293
Leave no rubs nor botches in the work. William Shakespeare, Macbeth III i 134
Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further. ibid. III ii 22
Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke. William Shakespeare, Pericles I 181, Pericles
Let us be sacrificers but not butchers. Julius Caesar 2012 starring Paterson Joseph & Ray Fearon & Cyril Nri & Adjoa Andoh & Jeffery Kissoon et al, director Gregory Duran RSC production *****
Let us carve him as a dish fit for the gods, not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds. ibid.
Jack, eating rotten cheese, did say,
Like Samson I my thousands slay;
I vow, quoth Roger, so you do,
And with the selfsame weapon too. Benjamin Franklin, Impromptu
See how love and murder will out. William Congreve 1670-1729, The Double Dealer
Always put one in the brain. Miller’s Crossing 1990 starring Gabriel Byrne & Marcia Gay Harden & John Turturro & John Polito & J E Freeman & Albert Finney & Steve Buscemi & John McConnell & MikeStarr & Al Mancini & Olek Krupa & Michael Jeter et al, director & producer Coen brothers
Murder considered as one of the fine arts. Thomas de Quincey, essay Blackwood’s Magazine February 1827
Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood … In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?
Naturally, about a murder. George Orwell, Decline of the English Murder and other Essays, 1965
I wanted to murder, for my own satisfaction ... At that moment I did not care a damn whether I would become the benefactor of someone, or would spend the rest of my life like a spider catching them all in my web and sucking the living juices out of them. Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1821-81, Crime and Punishment
To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflect on him the most terrible punishment so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character. Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1821-81, House of the Dead
One murder made a villain,
Millions a hero. Beilby Porteus, Death, 1759
Stiff U Like: what I offer is the complete service for the malkie … Rab C Nesbitt s2e5: Ethics, BBC 1992
Here’s my card: Make Mine Malkie. I do a lovely stab. Or there’s a happy hour between Six and Seven. Two knee-caps for the price of one. Rab C Nesbitt s8e2: Heat, prison friend to Rab, BBC 1999
With the help of forensic science most crimes can be solved. But most criminals never approach their crimes scientifically. If you thought like a forensic scientist, could you commit the perfect murder? Horizon: How to Commit the Perfect Murder, BBC 2007
Spotting a suspicious death is a race against time. As a body begins to decompose the information the pathologist relies on starts to disappear. ibid.
No matter how well hidden flies will rapidly pick up on the smell of a dead body. ibid.
Lee’s insect evidence has provided the crucial time of death in murder convictions across the US. ibid.
Calculating the time of death is a complicated business. At any given crime scene there are hundreds of variables. ibid.
Wherever a body is dumped there will be a branch of science that can help catch the criminal. ibid.
It would take around twenty-seven gallons of sulphuric acid and several weeks to dissolve of a human body. And it’s not even foolproof. ibid.