Why 9 out of 10 bestselling thrillers feature violence against women

By Alexandra Snow

A psychologist reveals why nine out of 10 bestselling novels in the U.K. feature a woman being murdered — as the fiction acts as a "controlled threat rehearsal" for female readers.

This week's top 10 books on the Sunday Times bestseller list include nine books that involve the death of at least one female character.

The top 10 includes "The Secret of Secrets," "The Correspondent," "The Divorce," "The Names," "The Family Friend," "The Widow," "The Impossible Fortune," "The Hallmarked Man," "My Husband’s Wife" and "Boleyn Traitor."

"The Correspondent" is the only book that does not feature a woman’s death, and five of the nine books were written by women.

Dr. Tracy King, a clinical psychologist and expert witness in criminal and family law, said that women are the main audience of these novels.

King, 57, said: “For women to read and write about women being harmed, it can represent a controlled threat rehearsal.

“There's lots of domestic violence, lots of coercion and control that women are victims of, and by writing about it in this way, it's almost like women are enabling themselves to look at what the worst-case scenario is and somehow feel a bit more prepared.

“It's not a conscious thing. People aren't necessarily thinking, ‘Oh, I feel scared, so therefore I'm going to read a book about murder,’ it's not that literal.

“It's an unconscious process that we're drawn to seeing things that feel horrible and harmful because it gives your nervous system a threat rehearsal.”

She said this is as a result of the different threats and fears that women face in society.

The psychologist, from Kent, said: “We as women have a level of risk that maybe men don't always have. Obviously, the men do get harmed, but it seems it's slightly different.

“Women are taught to watch their drinks in places, taught to share our location with people, assess the mood of our partners, know who's walking behind you, calculate whether it's safe to say no to someone, etc.

“Crime fiction takes this everyday vigilance and kind of gives it a bit of a stepped process for women to almost go through, because there's a victim, a threat, some clues, and then there's an explanation.

“It makes the unknown of the risks that we might come across in life a bit more knowable by following that plot through.

“This isn’t a conscious thing. I don't think women are living in a state of absolute terror, and that's why we're doing this.

“I think it almost provides an escape with a little added bonus of preparation of the protective curiosity.”

Women in domestically violent or controlling relationships can often be drawn to crime novels as a way to rationalize their relationships, King analyzed.

She said: “I've had lots of clients that are in domestic violence relationships and controlling relationships and have left them, and a lot of women have an interest in crime fiction.

“I think it kind of helps them to see that there's a way out, or other people are having these experiences, and it allows them to connect with actually what's happening is not right.

“Very often, in terms of survival mechanisms, if someone is in a controlling and coercive relationship, for example, they will normalize it, but actually, reading these books has been a point of awareness for women to say ‘if I don't do something, if I don't step back from this relationship, this worst-case scenario could happen to me’.”

She assured that these books do not normalize violence against women, but this is dependent on the readership.

King said: “However, it depends on who the readership is, because I work in forensic settings as well, and I work with men who are committing violence against women, so if you had a male that was obsessively reading these kind of books, it could feed into some sort of fantasy that they had.”