What Leads A Man To Murder

Notes

NOTES

I once read a Jeffrey Archer story that ran in a circular fashion such as this one, and I thought it would be fun to try it myself. As I perused the possibilities, I thought:

“What could possibly happen, during the course of 24 hours, to turn an ordinary man into a cold-blooded murderer?”

He’d have to wonder, early in the day, what could bring such a thing to pass and then, by midnight, perform the act himself. A chilling and frightening notion, as it suggests this could happen to anyone. Anyone with soft enough moral character to allow it to happen, I console myself. A bit like the belief that a hypnotist can’t plant a post-hypnotic suggestion that the subject wouldn’t perform while in their conscious mind. It comes down to how suggestion and motivation meet up with moral character.

I was also intrigued by the title I came up with: What Leads A Man To Murder. It’s almost like a riddle. Put one way, it asks a question. Put another way, it provides the answer. Try it and see what I mean.

I pondered this story idea as I took a walk through our rural, forested, golf-course neighborhood. I imagined what I might think if a man-—dressed in a suit, tie, and slick-soled shoes—-came slinking out of the trees. I’d wonder what he was up to. My imagination would go wild.

And so it did. You’ve just read the result.