Necro-Bestsellers and Media Archaeology: Why Do Polish Reporters Prefer Chasing Ghosts Instead of Hunting Living Monsters?

 

Necro-Bestsellers and Media Archaeology: Why Do Polish Reporters Prefer Chasing Ghosts Instead of Hunting Living Monsters?

We are living in the golden age of Polish true crime.

Bookstores are bending under the weight of thick volumes with dark covers. Streaming platforms compete to produce yet another adaptation of investigative reports. Authors travel from one meeting to another, give interviews, pose for photos, and tell us that “we must return to difficult cases.” Publishers wrap old tragedies in elegant covers, add a slogan about “giving voice to the victims,” and sell another dose of moral anxiety.

But let us finally ask one brutal question:

Who does this journalistic archaeology really serve?

Because more and more often, I have the impression that this is no longer about warning society. It is not about truly protecting children, women, patients, or people harmed by the system. It is about something much more convenient: safely digging through the past and turning it into a bestseller, without risking conflict with anyone living, powerful, or dangerous.

The best symbol of this mechanism is the case of Andrzej Samson, returning like a boomerang — a man whom the Warsaw intellectual salon of the 1990s first placed on a pedestal, only to later throw him down from it. A dark, important, painful case. But is every new book about it still an act of courage? Or is it rather a carefully calculated publishing product?

A Lesson in the Anatomy of a Monster… from a Safe Distance

The official narrative always sounds beautiful.

“We must talk about it.”
“We must not remain silent.”
“We need to show the mechanism.”
“Never again a conspiracy of silence.”

All of this is true. But those sentences also look excellent in a publisher’s promotional material.

Andrzej Samson has been dead since 2009. He will not open another office. He will not build a new authority. He will not appear on a morning television show. He will not file a defamation lawsuit. He will not call an editor-in-chief. He will not block a publication. He will not activate his network of influential friends.

Writing about him today, in 2026, means striking a safe target. A dead target. A target that cannot hit back.

And this is precisely why we must ask: where does public mission end, and where does convenient business built on old trauma begin?

Because it is easy to hunt a monster who is already dead. It is much harder to confront monsters who still have offices, law firms, Instagram accounts, media friends, connections in publishing, and the public image of “experts on the human soul.”

It is easy to write about a salon from thirty years ago.
It is harder to describe the salon of today.

It is easy to hold elites accountable when they have already grown old.
It is harder to hold accountable those who still hand out invitations, grants, recommendations, contracts, and media patronage.

Real Courage Begins Where the Archive Ends

Of course, someone will say: reportage is supposed to reveal mechanisms. Agreed. But do we really need only the exhumation of old monsters in order to understand a sick system?

Are the most important threats really locked away in files from twenty years ago?

After all, today, here and now, an entire industry of influence over the human psyche is operating around us. Luxury offices. Pseudo-therapists. Coaches without responsibility. Influencers selling “trauma healing.” Self-development gurus. People without real oversight, who can enter someone’s life more deeply than a doctor, priest, and family combined.

And what happens?

Where are the major books about them?

Where are the exposé novels about today’s therapeutic, media, publishing, and influencer networks?

Where are the contemporary writers who, instead of safely describing evil from the past, can create engaged literature — fiction strongly rooted in reality, fiction that does not need to point at names directly, but shows the mechanism so clearly that the reader begins to understand what they should defend themselves against?

Where Are Today’s Ilse Schneiders?

Literature does not have to be only a court document. It does not have to be merely a footnote, a file, a protocol, or a conversation held years later. Literature can be a warning. It can be a shield. It can be a social alarm.

A strong exposé novel can sometimes achieve more than a reportage book about a long-closed case. Fiction allows us to show a living mechanism without pretending that everything is about only one individual. It shows the system. It shows the language of manipulation. It shows seduction through authority. It shows how the victim begins to doubt themselves while the abuser continues to be seen as a successful person.

Such literature is needed today far more than another necro-bestseller.

Because it warns us about what may happen tomorrow.

It does not merely explain what happened yesterday.

Business Built on Trauma with a Safe Expiry Date

The problem is that old trauma has one great market advantage: it is safe.

It can be described.
It can be sold.
It can be adapted for the screen.
It can be discussed in podcasts.
It can become a cover, a debate, a panel, a festival, and a series of author meetings.

And at the same time, no one has to risk conflict with someone who still truly has influence.

That is why a reportage book about a dead perpetrator is perfect for the market. It has darkness, a name, scandal, elites, victims, and archives. It has everything a bestseller needs. It lacks only one thing: real risk.

And without risk, there is no courage.

There is only a well-written product.

Reader, Do Not Let Anyone Tell You That Every Dark Book Is an Act of Justice

Not every book about violence helps victims.
Not every book about old evil protects us from today’s evil.
Not every true crime author is the conscience of society.
Sometimes they are simply skilled participants in a market that knows human tragedy sells well, especially once enough years have passed for no influential person to feel threatened anymore.

That is why we must ask: what does this book actually change?

Does it warn us about contemporary danger?
Does it reveal mechanisms that still operate today?
Does it teach readers how to recognize manipulation?
Does it help potential victims?
Or does it merely allow us to look at someone else’s suffering from the comfort of our armchair?

Because if, after reading yet another reportage book about an old monster, the system still sleeps peacefully, contemporary manipulators continue building their brands, and the reader receives only a thrill and a sense of moral superiority — then this was not a revolution.

It was theatre.

A theatre of necro-voyeurism.

Curtain.

Book Review: Psychologist. The Andrzej Samson Case by Edyta Krześniak

Rating: 7.5 / 10

This does not mean that Edyta Krześniak’s book is weak. Quite the opposite. From a journalistic point of view, Psychologist. The Andrzej Samson Case is a powerful and carefully documented investigative report. It deserves serious attention because it brings back a case that should never have been buried under silence, shame, and the comfortable amnesia of elites.

But the fact that the book is important does not mean it should be accepted without questions.

Strengths

The strongest element of the book is access to previously unknown materials. Krześniak reportedly reaches court files and documents that had remained hidden for years, which allows her to build the story not on gossip, but on hard material. This gives the book weight, credibility, and a disturbing sense of reality.

Another strength is the fact that the victims are not pushed into the background. The book does not focus only on the perpetrator as a dark celebrity figure. It gives space to the people harmed by him — children then, adults now — and shows the long shadow of trauma.

The book also exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called intellectual salon. It shows how easily a respected public figure can be protected by status, charm, connections, and social blindness. This may be the most important lesson of the whole story: when society turns a person into an untouchable authority, warning signs suddenly become invisible.

Krześniak’s journalistic style is precise, cold, and controlled. She avoids cheap sensationalism and builds her case through documents, testimonies, and details. This is not a tabloid-style horror show. It is a disciplined piece of investigative writing.

The book is also a warning against the cult of authority. It reminds us that a media guru, psychologist, therapist, writer, priest, professor, or coach should never be placed beyond criticism simply because society has decided to admire them.

Weaknesses

The main weakness is also the central ethical problem: this is still media archaeology. The case concerns events from decades ago, and Samson has been dead since 2009. He can no longer harm anyone. He can no longer be held accountable. He can no longer respond.

That makes the book safer than it may appear.

It looks courageous, but in many ways it confronts a closed chapter rather than a living system.

The second problem is the lack of stronger consequences for the present. The book exposes the past, but it does not fully answer the most urgent question: what should change now? How do we protect people today from pseudo-authorities, unregulated therapeutic power, manipulation, and institutional silence?

There is also the uncomfortable question of commercializing old trauma. Any major true crime book built around real suffering enters dangerous territory. Even when written with care and dignity, it still becomes a market product. It is sold, promoted, reviewed, discussed, and consumed. That does not automatically make it unethical — but it demands honesty.

Finally, the book may feel too concentrated on a specific social and media environment. The reader may wonder whether the broader system that created and protected such authority figures has really been fully examined.

Final Verdict

Psychologist. The Andrzej Samson Case is an outstanding investigative report in terms of craft. It is an important document of an era and a necessary act of remembrance for victims who were denied full justice.

But it also leaves a bitter question: why did such a deep reckoning take more than two decades? And why does the publishing market so often prefer to sell us old monsters, while today’s manipulators continue to build their careers in plain sight?

This is a strong, necessary, and disturbing book.

But it is also a book with a shadow.

A shadow of ethical discomfort.
A shadow of commercial calculation.
A shadow of a system that still prefers to discuss yesterday’s evil rather than confront today’s danger.

Final rating: 7.5 / 10.

A powerful investigative report — but not the revolution it may want to be.

The Real Question Remains: Who Will Write About the Monsters Who Are Still Alive?

Not the ones in the archive.
Not the ones in closed files.
Not the ones who can be safely judged years later.

But the ones who speak from screens today, run workshops, sell courses, pretend to be experts, manipulate emotions, and enter people’s lives under the banners of help, therapy, development, or spiritual awakening.

Only such a book would be truly necessary.

Only such a book would be truly dangerous.

Only such a book could save someone’s life, mental health, or dignity.

And perhaps that is exactly why so few of them are written.