In addition to his historical crime books and mystery fiction, Schechter has written extensively on American popular culture. In "The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and Popular Art", he explores the relationship between contemporary commercial entertainment and the narrative archetypes of traditional folklore. "Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment" places the current controversy over media violence in a broad historical context. Examining everything from Victorian murder ballads to the productions of the nineteenth-century Grand Guignol, the book makes the somewhat contrarian argument that today's popular entertainment is actually less violent than the gruesome diversions of the supposedly halcyon past.