The True Crime genre will again be one of the most popular topics at this weekend's Tucson Festival of Books.
Harold Schechter is one of the presenting authors at the Festival. He has researched and written about some of the most notorious criminal cases in the country.
Schechter says traveling to the Southwest amid the ongoing mystery about Tucsonan Nancy Guthrie's disappearance is heartbreaking.
"Especially nowadays when you have all these online amateur detectives trying to solve these things," he said. "There is a central mystery that may or may not ever be solved."
The writer of 2003's "The Serial Killer Files" thinks the appeal for true crime stories comes from an intense curiosity about the extremes of human behavior.
"In our own time and place in particular, a lot of those impulses cannot be acted on and we take some kind of vicarious pleasure in reading about them."
Schechter will participate in a Festival of Books panel discussion on what it takes to be an investigative journalist, and how they get to the bottom of the crimes they cover.
The Tucson Festival of Books is this Saturday and Sunday at the University of Arizona, admission is free.
