When writers kill  Authors with genuinely red-toothed experience
have fascinating insights into the way the world really works to
draw on. But where are they? Ian Fleming's gun A pistol once
owned by Ian Fleming. Sadly for his books, he is not thought to
have used it. Photograph: Ian Nicholson/PA  Writers, by and
large, are a boring lot – even more so now that so many are
employed by the state (or states in the case of the US) to teach
middle-class youth how to tell imaginary stories in prose. Yes,
yes, the academy is a fascinating subject and you can't have
enough tales about college politics or balding, paunchy middle-
aged lecturers lusting after young girls. But even so, something
elemental has been lost: a connection to the blood and piss and
fecal slime of life.  Take killing for instance. For millennia,
humans have taken great delight in slaughtering each other.
Indeed, in some cultures, a man was (is) not a man until he had
(has) shed another's blood. Read a modern literary novel about
killing however,