Basically A Detective

Basically A Detective Juliana Gray (bio) My T-shirt is a big hit. My friend Erin and I aren't even inside the convention yet, standing in a line that stretches almost all the way back to the main entrance of the Hilton Riverside New Orleans, and already I'm getting a lot of compliments. And I should—my shirt is awesome, black with white text reading it's always the husband, a pool of red underscoring the final word. Other attendees have also brought their strong T-shirt game. true crime, wine, in bed by 9, reads one. There's alexa, i need to hide a body. I see several reading #freeadnan; there's a panel on that case later today. One woman's shirt is simply a pink heart surrounding the name paul holes. Paul Holes is the man we're waiting to see, a former forensic investigator in northern California and "host" of CrimeCon 2019, where he's about to give the Thursday afternoon welcome address. Holes was part of the team that used familial DNA to identify and arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, the serial rapist and murderer known as the Golden State Killer, in 2018. He is also a legit snacc, with lean features and icy blue eyes that say, "I have stared down the worst of humanity and brought them to justice, and I'd love to tell you all the details over a bottle of perfectly chilled Prosecco, Juliana." That is, I really admire his work. Erin and I make it into the ballroom and find seats where we can see both the podium and one of the Jumbotron screens. There are probably over two thousand people, at least 90 percent of them women. The few guys scattered about look like drag-along boyfriends or husbands, or possibly podcasters. [End Page 475] The Jumbotrons switch to life, blasting us with dramatic music and flicking through a montage of criminals, accused offenders, victims, and survivors—DeAngelo, Adnan Syed, Steven Avery, April Tinsley, Jamie Closs. Applause ripples through the crowd when the screens show a clip of Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction. By the time Holes walks across the stage, the crowd is so worked up that we shoot to our feet and scream. This is our Shea Stadium, and Paul Holes is every-one's favorite Beatle. ________ "True crime" used to be synonymous with "soft-core porn," published in 1930s and '40s magazines like True Detective, Real Detective, Startling Detective, Uncensored Detective—you get the idea. Most published both fiction and fictionalized accounts of true stories, and sold for pocket change. These were magazines for men, by men, their covers splashed with either raven-haired bad girls luring innocents into sin and scandal, or good girls in peril and/or bondage. Either way the women were highly sexualized, their lips crimson, dresses covering their no-doubt heaving breasts by means that defied the laws of physics. One of my favorite covers, from Master Detective in 1938, shows a redheaded woman—OK, a dame, her green dress completely slipped down from her shoulders and clinging to her bosom only by wishful thinking—staring directly at the viewer. She's holding a phone to her ear; her hands are loosely bound, the ropes draped over her wrists like bracelets. The painted image is beautifully rendered, but what gets me is the text: werewolf! the valley of missing men. A couple of other story titles are also listed, but none of them seem to have anything to do with the doll arching her eyebrows on the cover. Although the golden era of pulp magazines waned after the 1950s, the popularity of true crime among a male audience persisted. Then something started to shift. Some pinpoint the 1980 publication of The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule's firsthand account of her unwitting friendship with serial murderer Ted Bundy, as the beginning of a new [End Page 476] trend. Here was a book about crime by a woman, from a female point of view. It was detailed but not lurid, literary rather than sensational, and it sold through the roof. Others point to TV shows like Forensic Files...