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Book Talk by Joe


Rediscover the Thrill of Thrillers

Genre fiction used to be relatively easy to identify. Basically, there were three categories - mystery, romance and science fiction. If a book or its author would not fit neatly into one of these genres, like suspense and thriller novels, publishers, bookstores and readers would throw them into the general fiction category.
Over time, authors like Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy, carved out a specific niche for their writing, and the world of thrillers emerged as a dis-tinct genre of its own.

A thriller is a novel of suspense whose storyline emphasizes and is driven by the protagonist being in some kind of danger. Gamesmanship and the chase are key plot elements.

A mystery, on the other hand, is driven by the protagonist solving a crime, and in the process of doing so, being exposed to danger. The “who-dunnit” cliché is an apt description of the mystery genre. The protagonist in a thriller, however, is usually trying to prevent a crime from happening or a conspiracy from succeeding.

Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the plot of many thrillers focused on the Cold War and all of its manifestations. The good spy/bad spy story permeated a great many novels. But since the end of the Cold War, thriller writers looked to other elements of suspense to entertain the reader - medical thrillers (Robin Cook), legal thrillers (John Lescroart), even paleontology thrillers (Michael Crichton).

The modern thriller novel is indeed alive and well, and the definition of what is a thriller has broadened to encompass other genre authors. Now, everything from romantic suspense to historical fiction are included in the modern thriller phenomenon.

There is even a new organization of thriller authors - International Thriller Writers - that had its first international conference, Thrillerfest, over the July 4th weekend in Phoenix.

The bottom line to the reader, however, is entertainment through good writing. We don't really care that much what category a book falls into as long as the author engages us with interesting characters and a good story. All the rest is just marketing.

So, go ahead and “thrill” yourself with a good book. You deserve it.