people supplied with substitute organs.
Other medical thrillers involve rampant diseases (Richard Preston's The Hot Zone), and abuses of reproductive technology (Tess Garritsen's Life Support). All these plotlines play upon an inherent fear of doctors and their ability to save and destroy life—and the fear that these enormous powers, used for evil instead of good, will destroy humanity as surely as those revived dinosaurs.
Political Thrillers
Richard North Patterson takes issues that burn in the public mind and shows how they resonate in the lives of very important political figures. In No Safe Place, a Robert F. Kennedy-like candidate runs for office, haunted by the death of his older brother. Protect and Serve introduces a female candidate for the Supreme Court caught on the horns of the abortion dilemma and a John McCain-like senator who must choose between painful personal revelations and political principle.
Crime Thrillers
One relatively new suspense form is the serial killer novel, a cross between near-horror and police procedural. The horror isn't based on the existence of vampires, or ghosts, or paranormal phenomena, but on the very real horror engendered by true-life killers. Yet the emotional impact on the reader is similar: being scared out of one's wits. The police procedural angle allows the brain to be engaged and a level of understanding to be reached. While many serial killer books are published each year, none have had more impact than Thomas Harris's Red Dragon, which was the first to reveal the secrets of the FBI's profiling unit.
The key to Red Dragon for me wasn't just the amazing and enthralling look into the world of profilers, but the way Harris humanized the serial killer by showing us his horrific childhood. This has become a cliche, but it was powerful when new, and it said something ordinary civilians hadn't really understood before. Patricia Cornwell's books offer a similar backstage look at the autopsy, creating a hybrid form that might be called "procedural suspense."
Legal Thrillers
The world of the legal thriller is an interesting one. Very seldom is there as much at stake in these as there is in the techno and medical subgenres. Humanity itself is not in jeopardy, and usually, only one life is on the line and the life isn't always that of the lawyer protagonist. Yet the legal thriller continues its commercial reign. What is it about this form that keeps readers coming back for more?
The legal thriller combines the straight suspense novel, with its emphasis on the protagonist's personal danger, with the courtroom drama, which traditionally focused on other people's troubles.
What do I mean by this? Take the best courtroom novel ever. (Yes, if you read it today you'll think it's amazingly slow-paced. It's not a thriller. Never was. Never wanted to be.) Anatomy of a Murder shows us a criminal trial from beginning to end, and one of its most striking features is that the trial itself doesn't begin until Midpoint, halfway through the book.
That's because the author, Robert Traver, who was a lawyer and judge in Michigan, knew what most non-lawyers at that time didn't: that a trial really begins the moment a criminal lawyer meets his client. The lawyer, consciously or unconsciously, sums up his client and his client's situation and begins mentally writing his summation to the jury. In this case, attorney Paul Biegler wants very much to believe that his client killed his wife's rapist in a moment of temporary insanity, or, as Michigan courts demand it be worded, irresistible impulse.
The first half of the book consists of preparation for trial, the second half of the trial itself. This is a common feature of courtroom novels now, but today's thrillers add a lot more personal baggage to the lawyer-hero and often put her in dire jeopardy over and above winning or losing the case.
At the trial, things go wrong. Witnesses lie and deny they ever told the lawyer a different story. The judge
Other medical thrillers involve rampant diseases (Richard Preston's The Hot Zone), and abuses of reproductive technology (Tess Garritsen's Life Support). All these plotlines play upon an inherent fear of doctors and their ability to save and destroy life—and the fear that these enormous powers, used for evil instead of good, will destroy humanity as surely as those revived dinosaurs.
Political Thrillers
Richard North Patterson takes issues that burn in the public mind and shows how they resonate in the lives of very important political figures. In No Safe Place, a Robert F. Kennedy-like candidate runs for office, haunted by the death of his older brother. Protect and Serve introduces a female candidate for the Supreme Court caught on the horns of the abortion dilemma and a John McCain-like senator who must choose between painful personal revelations and political principle.
Crime Thrillers
One relatively new suspense form is the serial killer novel, a cross between near-horror and police procedural. The horror isn't based on the existence of vampires, or ghosts, or paranormal phenomena, but on the very real horror engendered by true-life killers. Yet the emotional impact on the reader is similar: being scared out of one's wits. The police procedural angle allows the brain to be engaged and a level of understanding to be reached. While many serial killer books are published each year, none have had more impact than Thomas Harris's Red Dragon, which was the first to reveal the secrets of the FBI's profiling unit.
The key to Red Dragon for me wasn't just the amazing and enthralling look into the world of profilers, but the way Harris humanized the serial killer by showing us his horrific childhood. This has become a cliche, but it was powerful when new, and it said something ordinary civilians hadn't really understood before. Patricia Cornwell's books offer a similar backstage look at the autopsy, creating a hybrid form that might be called "procedural suspense."
Legal Thrillers
The world of the legal thriller is an interesting one. Very seldom is there as much at stake in these as there is in the techno and medical subgenres. Humanity itself is not in jeopardy, and usually, only one life is on the line and the life isn't always that of the lawyer protagonist. Yet the legal thriller continues its commercial reign. What is it about this form that keeps readers coming back for more?
The legal thriller combines the straight suspense novel, with its emphasis on the protagonist's personal danger, with the courtroom drama, which traditionally focused on other people's troubles.
What do I mean by this? Take the best courtroom novel ever. (Yes, if you read it today you'll think it's amazingly slow-paced. It's not a thriller. Never was. Never wanted to be.) Anatomy of a Murder shows us a criminal trial from beginning to end, and one of its most striking features is that the trial itself doesn't begin until Midpoint, halfway through the book.
That's because the author, Robert Traver, who was a lawyer and judge in Michigan, knew what most non-lawyers at that time didn't: that a trial really begins the moment a criminal lawyer meets his client. The lawyer, consciously or unconsciously, sums up his client and his client's situation and begins mentally writing his summation to the jury. In this case, attorney Paul Biegler wants very much to believe that his client killed his wife's rapist in a moment of temporary insanity, or, as Michigan courts demand it be worded, irresistible impulse.
The first half of the book consists of preparation for trial, the second half of the trial itself. This is a common feature of courtroom novels now, but today's thrillers add a lot more personal baggage to the lawyer-hero and often put her in dire jeopardy over and above winning or losing the case.
At the trial, things go wrong. Witnesses lie and deny they ever told the lawyer a different story. The judge
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