SOURCE: "Crimes Don't Always Pay, Especially for Writers," in The New York Times, June 18, 1995, p. 4.

[In the essay below, Ullman discusses the popularity and quality of true-crime fiction.]

When Juliet Papa's Ladykiller reached bookstores in the spring its publisher and writer were poised to see sales take off.

The book by Ms. Papa, a crime reporter for WINS-AM, may have seemed quite likely to become another hot-selling book about headline crimes on Long Island, in the tradition of Lethal Lolita about Amy Fisher and Crossing the Line: The True Story of Long Island Serial Killer Joel Rifkin.

Ms. Papa's subject was certainly lurid enough. The Ladykiller of the title, Ricardo S. Caputo, had skyrocketed to fame a year earlier, after admitting on television that he had murdered his 19-year-old fiancée and three other young women 20 years ago.

Mr. Caputo said he was turning himself in because, after...