We are fascinatedby rogues, fromChaucer's PardonertoDelBoy. 9 Weare bad at risk-assessment, and repeated surveysshow thatwefear crime farmore than is justified.
Think of fiction's best drawn, most entertaining characters - Chaucer's Pardoner, Shakespeare's Iago, every third man and woman in Jane Austen, every other man and woman in Dickens - and the H-word is there, satisfyingly to be unmasked.