Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Truth is the stuff of ficton

Talk about life mirroring fiction. The story on the BBC web site today about a man who was found guilty after a policeman realised that the murder he had described in his book had actually been carried out seven years earlier is ripe for a film script. Krystian Bala planned and carried out the murder of Dariusz Janiszewski in Poland because he thought the man was having an affair with his wife.

The details of the story are set out by Adam Easton on the BBC web site:

"The body of Dariusz Janiszewski, the young, well-liked owner of a small
advertising agency, was spotted by fishermen seven years ago on the banks of the
River Oder, near the Polish city of Wroclaw.

He had been tortured, starved and tied up in a way that made it
impossible to swim.
For years the police in Wroclaw had no motive and no
suspect for the murder.
Then an officer came across an internet discussion
about a murder in a recently published novel, entitled Amok.

The book was the first novel by philosophy graduate Krystian Bala, and
it contained a description of a murder with similarities to that of Mr
Janiszewski."


The morale of the story is probably that one shalt not murder but if you do then it’s best not to write it down in detail in a thriller.