Fans of True Detective now know that the mysterious Yellow King has great significance in the 17-year murder investigation, but it is still unclear how the "king" is connected to the murders.

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Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) has been connecting certain parts of the case together over the past few episodes and has noticed the Yellow King being brought up by various sources. As a literary fan, Cohle would be pleased to know that this is a reference to The King in Yellow, a collection of short stories by Robert W. Chambers.

The short stories in The King in Yellow are intended to drive the reader a little mad and feature the King in Yellow as a supernatural creature that represents death.

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"I pray God will curse the writer," the narrator says in The King in Yellow, "as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth - a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow."

True Detective has also featured Reggie LeDoux making reference to the city of Carcosa, a fictional city featured in The King in Yellow. Nic Pizzolatto, the writer of True Detective, spoke about Carcosa in a featurette.

"Stranger still is lost Carcosa," Pizzolato quoted, "where black stars rise and purple skies, but stranger is lost Carcosa."

As True Detective continues onward, the series has unraveled some of the overarching mythology involved from 1995-2012. Much like Cohle's philosophical ramblings, the references to the Yellow King and Carcosa suggest that the case is such a mystery to those involved that they've been driven mad as a result.

With only three episodes left of True Detective season 1, fans should expect even more action and insanity to unfold as the characters gradually unravel.

True Detective airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Watch Pizzolatto's interview about the Yellow King and Carcosa below:

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