Just filedThe debtForty trillion, and nobody signed for it
sleyor
The rules
CultureA series in ten plates

The Shelf

Ten jackets, one per name, set in the 1960 idiom the trade has never really left. The order is fame, not harm — and the man with the highest confirmed total is last.

The argument is filed in full in the anchor piece. This is the index to the jackets.

A hand-drawn trail map in the 1960 police-science idiom: the states dotted in, each name on the shelf marked with a cross where the case sits.
The trail map, as filed. Every cross below has its own jacket.
The ten
  1. A gas lamp in Whitechapel fog, scratchboard, cream stock.
    NO. 01

    Jack the Ripper

    Unsolved, and therefore reprintable for ever.

  2. A reel-to-reel recorder, scratchboard, cream stock.
    NO. 02

    Ted Bundy

    The interview chair is the genre's founding device.

  3. An isolated farmhouse at night, scratchboard, cream stock.
    NO. 03

    Ed Gein

    Two killings, and half the horror shelf.

  4. A brick apartment block with one lit window, scratchboard.
    NO. 04

    Jeffrey Dahmer

    Arrived when television learned to serialise.

  5. An empty clown costume in a cellar, scratchboard, cream stock.
    NO. 05

    John Wayne Gacy

    The costume did the marketing.

  6. A two-lane road running out across winter plains, scratchboard.
    NO. 06

    Charles Starkweather

    The jacket that started this piece.

  7. An 1890s brick hotel and a staircase to nothing, scratchboard.
    NO. 07

    H.H. Holmes

    A number a newspaper paid for.

  8. A typewriter, envelopes and a roll of stamps, scratchboard.
    NO. 08

    Dennis Rader

    Self-branded, self-distributed, self-defeated.

  9. A suburban window pried open at night, scratchboard.
    NO. 09

    Richard Ramirez

    Held by a nickname, not by the file.

  10. A river under a highway overpass, scratchboard, cream stock.
    NO. 10

    Gary Ridgway

    The largest total here, and no edition in print.