MURDER as entertainment has long been a staple of TV, films and literature. The events of the past week in North Yorkshire should throw this liking for grisly entertainment into a different light; they should, but probably won't, what with the whodunit being so popular.

Our passion for a TV murder, or an eagerly-thumbed crime novel, is mostly a happy distraction.

Yet this is a paradox. We seek entertainment in something that, if it happened to us or those we love, would be tragic and shocking beyond imagination.

When killings occur within our own community, such deaths provide a jolt for everyone, as well as ushering in untold heartache and agony for relatives and friends of the victims.

A local crime is a particularly upsetting crime, which is why reporters so often receive the standard response from witnesses or neighbours that "you don't expect things like that to happen round here". Such a sentiment is often delivered after the observation that so-and-so "kept themselves to themselves".

What we do expect is for "things like that" to happen on television, rolled out with bookish aplomb on Inspector Morse or played perilously close to laughs on Midsomer Murders; plotted with stylish haste on NYPD Blue (a personal favourite) or wrapped up in a prickly Church of England sermon by PD James.

Some time after the York manhunt ended on Sunday, the BBC happened to be putting out one of its newer star turns, Waking The Dead. This is a great series around which Trevor Eve prowls like a handsome lion who's getting on a bit but can still bite.

Good crime stories work because they are mysteries, which are stories in search of a solution. A traditional whodunit offers a resolution, the Agatha Christie moment in the library or whatever, where the detective runs through the suspects and, with a twist or two, unmasks the culprit. More modern versions sometimes leave the story unfinished, which can be unsettling.

Waking The Dead is built round the idea that the past often informs the present. Old crimes are investigated by Eve's "cold case squad", who are called in to sift over evidence that long since lost the heat of the cruel moment.

It is a very good programme, offering much forensic pleasure, and another I count as a favourite - along with all those old Morse episodes that are forever being polished up and taken out for another turn round the ITV block.

The grouchy old inspector died, ending the series; or so we thought. Now it emerges that the franchise is to be brought back under Morse's name, but without the main man.

Such a sleight of hand was pulled off some years ago by the producers of Taggart after the wee scowling fellow died. In TV Land death is no bar to continued life, at least not in terms of a leading brand.

The popularity of whodunits probably lies in the pull of the story; they have a shape, a beginning, middle and end. The narrative traditionally starts with the end, usually a brutal one - and then works backwards, following up assorted trails until the resolution is reached.

Wrongs are put right, villains are caught, and the world is made safer. In this, the more old-fashioned whodunit is a bit of a cheat, offering a neat tidying up in which all the strands are pulled together.

The whodunit is also popular because the genre deals with death, something we would all rather not consider (unlike, say, the Victorians, who were forever banging on about it). We'd really rather not think about that, thank you very much; so instead we'll skirt round the subject via well-made television dramas or easily-digested crime novels.

I love them all, the TV dramas, the novels. Yet a grim period like the one we've just endured is enough to make me worry about the general popularity of the murderous whodunit, and my own liking for such entertainment. Somehow I know I'll be back for more, although I still won't pick up real-life crime books. Reading those is just too weird.

Updated: 09:57 Thursday, July 29, 2004