Ian Rankin: There’s Nothing Crime Fiction Can’t Do | Literary Hub

"All crime fiction boils down to ‘Why do we keep doing these terrible things? Why do human beings keep doing these terrible things to each other?'" Rankin tells me via Skype. "Throughout different cultures, throughout history, we just keep doing it. Is it something in our nature? Is it nature, or is it nurture? I made a TV documentary series years ago about evil [2002's Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts], and it boiled down to that question of whether people are born bad or made bad. It's a very easy question to ask and an almost impossible question to answer. But there are interesting things to come out of it. I was talking to one psychiatrist who said that the very things that make you a super-successful person in business would also make you a super-successful serial-killer-slash-psychopath: the inability to empathize; using people for your own ends; no conscience. And you can see there are a few of those people around now, and they do seem to get into positions of power."