Crime can pay. Crime writing, that is. Then, again, real crime can pay too. But we’ll leave real crime for others to do. Today I want to talk about crime fiction; specifically about mysteries, suspense, and thrillers.
Thrillers
Thrillers are all the rage these days, but what exactly is a thriller?
A thriller is an action story. Usually fast-paced. The protagonist is in danger from the beginning. There is a bad guy and the protagonist must stop him (or her) from accomplishing his nefarious deed. We usually know the good and bad guys right from the beginning.
The scope of the thriller is often large. The bad guy isn’t playing for pennies. He’s going to blow up a city, poison a country, start a nuclear war. The thriller is about big action and big bad guys. The protagonist, to some degree, must also be larger than life.
The works of Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler are examples of good thrillers.
In the hands of a good writer, the thriller can be a thrilling read. Often, though, the writing is sub-par and the story not plausible, unless I, the reader, exercise a mega-dose of the suspension of disbelief. This is how the Jack Reacher stories strike me.
Many books are labeled as thrillers, which technically aren’t. Why? Money. As one wit noted, the difference between a mystery and a thriller is about a hundred thousand dollars.
Suspense
The suspense novel is often a slow burn story. The focus isn’t on action, although there may be quite a bit of action. The focus is on creating a feeling of suspense in the reader.
In the suspense story, the reader is omniscient. We see everything. We see the bad guy planning whatever it is he is going to do. We see the protagonist completely unaware, at least at the beginning, of the bad guy and his actions. We, the reader, see much more of the danger than the protagonist does and therein lies the creation of suspense.
The scope of the suspense story is generally limited and focused on the main character. Things are happening, usually to the main character, and he doesn’t know why. We, the reader, usually do, however, which adds to the suspense.
Cornell Woolrich was the suspense writer par excellence. Lester Dent also wrote some fine suspense novels.
The Mystery
The mystery is about solving crime, usually a murder. The crime usually happens at the beginning of the story and the sleuth’s job is to solve it. The protagonist (the sleuth) can be a professional or an amateur. And we usually do not learn who the bad guy is until the end of the story.
There are many mystery sub-categories. Right now, the most popular is what I call the chick lit cozy. It is the cozy mystery with the addition of elements from chick lit: a young (or youngish) woman, who is the main character/sleuth; she is divorced or a widow; has moved to a new location, and embarked on a new career; and there’s romance. Along with the regular cozy mystery, these are very clean and non-violent reads.
An indie example is Agatha Frost’s Peridale Cafe Murder Mystery series.
In a mystery, the reader only knows what he or she is told. We see what the sleuth sees. The story is as much a puzzle for the reader as it is for the protagonist.
The mystery can be filled with suspense and it can be thrilling. The danger to the protagonist builds, along with the story. The more the sleuth learns about the criminal, the greater the danger he or she is in.
Personal Assessment
For me, I find the mystery to be the most satisfying reading experience. It combines the puzzle with suspense and thrilling action.
While the mystery is technically a plot-driven story, rather than character-driven, I find that the most interesting mysteries are those which have interesting characters.
Mystery plots are basically all the same. There is a murderer who has killed someone and is trying to cover up the crime while the sleuth is trying to uncover it.
What makes the mystery story interesting is the cast of characters and the twists and turns of the storyline. And quite often the cast of characters can save a mediocre storyline.
After all, we remember Nero Wolfe, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, Mr and Mrs North, and Sherlock Holmes. But how many of the actual mystery stories featuring these characters do we remember? I bet not many.
In my opinion, interesting characters make mysteries more interesting reads than thrillers or suspense novels. Which usually have fairly stock characters.
Pacing is another reason I prefer the mystery as a reader. The pacing accelerates with the action in the story. As the clues (and sometimes the bodies) pile up and the more the sleuth knows, the more desperate the killer becomes. And the sleuth finds himself in ever increasing danger.
The action ratchets up in a natural progression. Unlike the thriller where were out of breath by page 2 or 3. The mystery, to my mind, is much more realistic and natural.
Finally, as a reader, I don’t necessarily want to know everything. For me the suspense of knowing there is a killer out there is sufficient. As I learn information with the sleuth, I form a bond with him. We are in this together, as it were. The very nature of the mystery, helps draw me into the world of the sleuth and his dilemma.
There are some fine mysteries being written today by indie authors. Two I especially like are:
Richard Schwindt’s Death in Sioux Lookout trilogy
Joe Congel’s Tony Razzolito P.I. series
Both are very good and very much worth a read.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
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Good day, sir, and welcome back to the land of the grand discussion! I always enjoy and learn from your discussions, and this one is no exception. I should like to comment on how badly a thriller can go wrong when the ending is botched. I’m going to use Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six as the ultimate example, so,
HUGE SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARD!
Urban legend has it that Rainbow Six was written in tandem with the design of the original video game. Wasn’t there, don’t know, but it smacks of the game being finished, and Clancy being pressured to finish the book for the Big Release. Here are the spoilers: Rainbow is an uber-elite anti-terrorist organization. In the book, we see the Big Bads constantly a step ahead of the heroes as they create a virulent, nearly always fatal bio-weapon with which they plan to reduce the world’s population to about 10,000 people “for the good of the planet.” It is airborne, and will be distributed at the Sydney Olympics via the cooling mist sprays that people will be walking through, after which they’ll take the disease back to their various home countries for spreading.
The plan looks foolproof and unstoppable until one of the hired help decides he doesn’t like it, and calls Rainbow! Don’t know whether he looked them up in the phone book or what, but when the designated germ-planter arrives at the pump room, he finds a couple of Rainbow operatives waiting to take him into custody. It fell so completely flat after hundreds of pages of tense plot development that I seriously wanted Clancy to pay me for wasting my time!
This was a very fat book, and this was possibly the most tension-free denouement it has ever been my misfortune to read. Perhaps my disappointment was multiplied by my love of the game, but I have to say that I learned a great deal about how not to write action from this book, and I have never read anything else by Clancy since. He writes very long books, and I don’t have enough time left to risk the chance that he might offer another crap ending like that one. I guess the moral is that just because you have a big name doesn’t mean you’re a great writer (mind you, I was saying that about Dickens in high school), but young, beginning writers looking to find their way might want to read this as a textbook of how not to present your story.
Okay, rant’s over, but this abomination was foisted on the reading public in 1998, and I’m still this angry about it 21 years later. I suppose the lesson for the less-famous among us would be to not get so wrapped up in your plot that you overlook the ending; it is very much the most important part of the story.
A good day back at you, my friend! Thank you for your kind words.
I’ve never read Tom Clancy, and probably never will for the reason you pointed out: too many bestsellers aren’t that good. Those writers touch a popular nerve and are promoted by the big corporate publishers because they make the fat cats money.
In a sense, Dickens was the Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Dan Brown, Lee Child, etc, etc, of his day. Probably why I’ve never cared much for Dickens.
I think you are very right: a big name doesn’t mean the writer’s books are actually good. They may be. Then again they may simply be riding on the writer’s fame.
As you noted, the ending of any book is the key to its success or failure. The ending is what ultimately leaves us satisfied or dissatisfied.
Thanks for stopping by. Always appreciate your comments!