Many precedents for the current spate of serial killer novels exist, ranging from Elizabethan and Jacobean drama to Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs. "Tragedies of blood" were very popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, including some of Shakespeare's works. Macbeth is a truly horrifying play, and at the end of Hamlet, the stage is littered with dead bodies. Perhaps in Hamlet, we can see the reason for the popularity of horror because of the relief that is felt when order is restored. A new king, Fortinbras; will take over, presumably to rule better than the previous rulers.

However, as Patrick Enright, a Shakespearean scholar, points out, Fortinbras is not especially promising. He has broken treaties and has slaughtered a number of his soldiers in a fight over a few acres of land.

Shakespeare does not seem to promise much with Fortinbras in control, and...