What Makes a True Thriller?

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In 2011, I had a conversation with Ian Fleming’s nephew about what makes a book a thriller.  We were both milling around in the aftermath of the CWA Crime Thriller Awards, where I was fortunate enough to have won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and it was interesting to hear about the deliberation process, and how some of the judges weren’t even sure if The Lock Artist was a thriller at all. There were no spies in overcoats, no ticking time bombs, no deadly contagions that needed to be eradicated before mankind was wiped out. There was just a young man with an unforgivable talent for opening safes, trying to find his way out of an impossible situation. In the end, apparently Ian Fleming’s own conception of a thriller prevailed: Fleming believed that a good thriller was any book where one “simply has to turn the pages.”

Maybe you have a different definition of a thriller, but here’s mine: Unlike in a classic mystery—where the central problem is the commission of a crime and the resolution is justice—in a thriller the central problem is simple, mortal danger, and the resolution, if it’s found, is safety. Pure survival.

read more at crimereads.com

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