Six top literary killers

Marcel Berlins, who reviews crime fiction for the London Times, named his six top literary killers.

Here are the top three:

MEURSAULT Albert Camus
The Outsider’s protagonist kills an Arab in the hot sun and doesn’t care, influencing a million budding existentialists.

TEMPLE GAULT Patricia Cornwell
Gruesome appearances as Dr Kay Scarpetta’s nemesis in so many bestsellers (from 1993’s Cruel and Unusual onwards) make him the most read fictional killer ever.

RASKOLNIKOV Fyodor Dostoevsky
Destitute, he murders an old woman pawnbroker; would have escaped justice but for love and his conscience.

Read about numbers 4-6.

--Marshal Zeringue

© Campaign for the American Reader. Reprinted with permission.