Thrillers, 1977-2007
5 of our novelists specialized in the mystery/suspense/espionage genre, and 15 others tried it at least once.
Genre fiction, particularly the crime genre, was considered to offer the new or little-known author a better chance of building a readership than general fiction. People go into bookstores, so the thinking goes, looking for “a spy thriller,” and if they’ve already read the latest LeCarré, they’re amenable to picking up a spy thriller by a new author.
It follows that, as agents and editors saw it, a new author was well-advised to pick a sub-genre currently in fashion and emulate the best-selling practitioners of it. Agents and editors generally said that there two routes to success: to start a series of books with the same hero, or write a “big book” also called a “high concept thriller” that lent itself to a splashy advertising campaign and movie sale. Several such books could be found on the bestseller list throughout the period 1977-2007; the biggest of all was The DaVinci Code. Trends in this genre are particularly closely tied to film and television.
Classic mysteries or “whodunits” in the Agatha Christie tradition have tended to decline through the period 1977-2007, with the exception of P.D. James. In many of these novels, the focus is on ingenious crime-solving, humorous characterizations, and the charm of the detective-hero, who is often an amateur. These were called “cozies” and were moderately popular in the ‘80s. Readers who like less-violent mysteries tend to be interested in other cultures and eras. Probably the most popular whodunit author today is Alexander McCall Smith, a Scotsman who writes about Botswana. In the “history-mystery,” real people often appear along with fictitious ones. Nicholas Meyer paired Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud in The Seven Percent Solution and had a big hit in the mid 1970s. Similar books have continued to appear. Some, like Caleb Carr’s The Alienist (1994), have followed the general trend across the crime genre of becoming more realistic and violent.
The private investigator novel had been popular since the 1930s. In the ‘70s, its best-established practitioner was probably Ross Macdonald. Starting in the late ‘70s and continuing through the next two decades, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and other female authors wrote popular series about female private eyes. Another trend of the ‘80s was “the regional,” setting private eyes down in places other than the traditional L.A. and N.Y. Loren D. Estleman had a Detroit p.i.; John Lutz had a St. Louis one. In fact, by 1990 just about every city seemed to have a p.i. series. Then the trend faded. For the last decade or so, private eyes in general have been somewhat out of fashion.
The novel of romantic suspense, in which a lone young woman copes with a mystery and a dangerous but attractive man, continued to be popular in the ‘70s. Big names were Mary Stewart and Phyllis D. Whitney. A popular variation was the “Gothic,” which took after Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Victoria Holt and other practitioners set gothics in a wide range of historical settings. These genteel sub-genres faded through the period. In the late ‘70s, Mary Higgins Clark began to write bloodier and more intense versions of the romantic suspense novel. She has been popular throughout the period and inspired many imitators. The sub-genre came to be called “femjep” for “female in jeopardy.”
Probably the dominant sub-genre today is the police procedural. In the ‘70s, the best-known writer of the procedural was Ed McBain (pen name of Evan Hunter). The procedural is a realistic depiction of a group of detectives investigating multiple cases while battling departmental intrigue and personal problems. It grew steadily more popular through the period 1977-2007, and developed several variations, notably, in the 1990s, the medical examiner novel, often with a female protagonist. Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs are popular practitioners of this sub-genre today. Another variation was the serial killer novel. Beginning in the early ‘80s with Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, novels about sociopathic murderers and their hunters became more and more popular, though in the last few years, the tide seems to have ebbed.
Similar to the police procedural was the legal thriller, a more complicated and realistic descendant of the courtroom drama. These were usually written by lawyers or others with extensive knowledge of the criminal justice system. In the mid-‘80s, the success of the movie Jagged Edge and Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent made this a highly popular sub-genre. John Grisham and others kept it popular through the ‘90s and up to the present day.
Spy fiction is, of course, greatly affected by the world political situation. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, authors usually pitted American or British agents against Soviets. With the end of the Cold War around 1990, authors were not sure what to do and the espionage genre went into a period of declining popularity. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the war on terrorism has re-invigorated this sub-genre. A variant, beginning with Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October in the mid-‘80s, was the techno-thriller. Often written by military men, these novels featured long descriptions of high-tech weaponry and topical political comment, usually from a conservative point of view. After the fall of the Soviet Union, authors were inventive in finding new villains and this genre continued to thrive. By now, it has merged with the war-on-terror spy thriller. Most spy thrillers are set in the present or near future, but novels set in the World War II period (like Alan Furst's) have been consistently popular.
The crime novel sub-genre with most literary caché is psychological suspense (Ruth Rendell, Peter Abrahams).
Nothing in the foregoing applies to the leading crime writer of the period 1977-2007. Elmore Leonard did not write a series or a big book, or conform to a sub-genre. His novels rely not on ingenious plotting or detailed depiction of a particular milieu but on tough, funny dialogue.