From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. On this episode, we'll be strolling down one of our memory lanes,

a byway lined with bones and running with blood.

Is my prose too purple for this season of Sun and Sea?

Then I'll just say that we're devoting this week to true crime.

It's all the rage.

This is a global tell link prepaid call from...

No, we won't be talking about cereal.

I mean, what else is left to say?

It's the podcast that more than any other

introduce the nation to the idea of podcasts.

A gripping, thoughtful offshoot of this American life,

cereal spent 12-half hours exploring one 16-year-old murder, and it ended

in December 2014, leaving the nation stoked for more true crime on the radio. Until Serial, radio was

maybe the last narrative platform not conquered by true crime. Certainly it had long dominated TV and movies

and long been a best-selling book genre. In fact, when we picture true crime, that's what we see.

You know, the glossy paperbacks full of crime, punishment, and ordinary people behaving badly that decorate the supermarket

checkout aisle.

But don't let those foil covers fool you, says former salon writer Laura Miller.

Much true crime, she says, rises above mere pulp, and she should know.

She's been a true crime aficionado since childhood.

Helter Skelter, the book about the Manson Killings, was Miller's entree into the genre.

...