The Banality of Evil Doers

In real life, evil is usually quite banal. Serial killers, for example, are more often than not ordinary looking and acting people. These killers often have regular jobs, families, and hobbies. On the surface they do not stand out. You could talk to a serial killer in line at Walmart and not have the faintest idea that you are conversing with a man who tortures and murders women. Evil is not only banal, it is all around us like the air we breathe. In crime fiction, however, the super villain cannot be banal. Hannibal Lecter is a good example of a fictitious serial killer. The bad guys in novels must be insidiously interesting or in some way weird. But in reality, Hannibal Lecter murder types are exceedingly rare. The banality of evil reality makes solving these murders all the more difficult.