The triumph of the thriller : how cops, crooks, and cannibals captured popular fiction / Patrick Anderson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anderson, Patrick, 1936-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Detective and mystery stories, American--History and criticism.

Detective and mystery stories, American.

Physical Description:

x, 272 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [2007]

Summary:

Around 1930, Dashiell Hammett invented the American crime novel, and Raymond Chandler built on Hammett's work. Their hard-boiled tradition prevailed for several decades, but by the 1970s the crime novel began to mutate into something that was bigger, darker, more imaginative, and more violent: the modern thriller. Certain novels have been milestones in expanding the boundaries of the thriller-among them Lawrence Sanders's The First Deadly Sin, Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, John Grisham's The Firm, Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs, and Dennis Lehane's Mystic River. I want to examine this new mainstream and how it came about. I want to show who the good writers are and why. It seems to me beyond dispute that the level of talent at work today in thrillers and crime fiction is superior to anything that has previously existed. The best of today's thrillers are the white-hot center of American fiction. We hear talk about this or that "golden age" of yesteryear. Forget it. Right here, right now, is the golden age of thrillers.

Contents:

Crime present and crime past: A new beat ; Crime past: Poe, Doyle, Christie ; American style: Hammett, Cain, Chandler ; Tough guys: Spillane, MacDonald, McBain, Macdonald, Willeford

Changing crimes: The birth of the thriller ; Tom Clancy's literary offenses ; Dangerous women: Grafton, Paretsky, Highsmith ; Lawyers at large: Turow, Grisham, Lescroart ; Spy masters: McCarry, Littell, Silva, Furst ; Literary thrillers, killer clowns, barroom poets, drunken detectives, time travel, and related curiosities

Four modern masters: Thomas Harris: learning to love the doctor ; George Pelecanos: bulletins from the front ; Michael Connelly: death is my beat ; Dennis Lehane: no turning back

Talent, talent everywhere: Favorites ; More favorites: Brits ; Three young writers: Karin Slaughter, Peter Craig, Charlie Huston ; No more Mr. Nice Guy ; The question of the series ; Parting shots

Personal favorites.

ISBN:

9780345481238

0345481232

OCLC:

82143448