ABSTRACT
I Popular fiction has kept up with the popular press in its attention to the more noteworthy crimes of recent times. Such masterworks as Kennedy’s assassination, the Brink’s payroll job, the Vienna OPEC raid and the Great Train Robbery are commemorated in innumerable bestsellers, or would-be bestsellers. But it is not merely the size of the haul or eminence of the target which makes certain crimes specially noteworthy. Some crimes (computer embezzlement, for example) have only recently been devised and are interesting for their novelty; others could only be committed given modern social-military-economic equipment and its capacity for spectacular misuse. Popular fiction (especially genre) is very quick on the uptake where criminal innovation is concerned; so much so that quite ordinary novels are regularly credited with leading the field and blueprinting the more imaginative crimes of the day. One recent example: among the FBI’s suspects for the abduction of Patty Hearst was the author of an obscure pornographic adventure story of a year before which predicted the main outline of the actual kidnap. The novel was promptly reissued-as Abduction-and enjoyed some useful notoriety.
