A book meme -- and a question

I swore off memes a while back, except for Heads or Tails, but Shelby asked me to do this one -- a book meme -- that she got from Jeni.

Seems simple enough... and I do always have a book... or two... going. So here are the rules:

* Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more - No cheating.

* Turn to page 123 and find the first five sentences.

* Now post the next three sentences.

* The fun begins - - tag some people to play along.

Well, I won't tag anyone... but I can do the rest of it because it prompts a question that's been much on my mind of late.

I've just been reading Robert Cooley's book (with Hillel Levin), "When Corruption Was King." Cooley was a Chicago lawyer who got involved with the Outfit. He made money, and lots of it, but he finally got disgusted with what he was doing and for whom he was doing it. He got so disgusted that he one day walked into the U.S. Attorney's Office and offered to flip. He wore a wire for years and his testimony was instrumental in putting several gangsters and corrupt politicians and judges behind bars.

From page 123, sentences six, seven and eight: "For the crews, bar fights were just another part of nightlife, like someone else might think of playing pool or seeing a show. The mobsters weren't the only ones in a bar looking for trouble. I got in a lot of beefs myself."

Just before reading Cooley's book, I read "Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster," by Michael Corbitt and Sam Giancana. Corbitt was, at one time, the chief of a police department in a Chicago suburb. The other author is a nephew of the guy you're thinking of.

I found these books extremely frightening. The people about whom Corbitt and Cooley were writing are extremely frightening. They had creative ways of expressing their displeasure. And we're not talking TV shows or movies here -- although what happened to the Spilotro brothers, for example, has been used as source material for at least a couple of movies -- we're talking real life... and, frequently, the end thereof.

I read these books because I was curious -- I remember the trials, I remember the murders, I know people who have met either Corbitt or Cooley or both. But I did not read these books because I wanted to be entertained.

I see nothing 'entertaining' about these allegedly real accounts -- nor do I see anything entertaining about the unquestionably fictional accounts of similar persons -- the Godfather movies, for example, or the Sopranos. Which brings me to my question: Why do people find this stuff 'entertaining'?