The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction [Hardcover]

Patrick Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2007

There’s been a revolution in American popular fiction. The writers who dominated the bestseller lists a generation ago with blockbuster novels about movie stars and exotic foreign lands have been replaced by a new generation writing a new kind of bestseller, one that hooks readers with crime, suspense, and ever-increasing violence. Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post’s man on the thriller beat, calls this revolution “the triumph of the thriller,” and lists among its stars Thomas Harris, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, Sue Grafton, and Elmore Leonard.

In his provocative, caustic, and often hilarious survey of today’s popular fiction, Anderson shows us who the best thriller writers are–and the worst. He shows how Michael Connelly was inspired by Raymond Chandler, how George Pelecanos toiled in obscurity while he mastered his craft, how Sue Grafton created the first great woman private eye, and how Thomas Harris transformed an insane cannibal into the charming man of the world who made FBI agent Clarice Starling his lover.

Anderson shows Scott Turow inventing the modern legal thriller and John Grisham translating it into a stunning series of bestsellers. He casts a cold eye on Tom Clancy’s militaristic techno-thrillers, and praises Alan Furst and Robert Littell as world-class spy novelists. He examines the pioneering role of Lawrence Sanders, the offbeat appeal of Dean Koontz, the unprecedented success of The Da Vinci Code, and the emergence of the literary thriller.

Most of all, Anderson demands that the best of these novelists be given their due–not as genre writers, but as some of the most talented men and women at work in American fiction. Don’t trust the literary elites to tell you what to read, he warns–make up you own minds. The Triumph of the Thriller will convince many readers that we’ve entered an important new era in popular fiction. This book can be your guide to it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The reader who isn't a thriller fan but is curious about this enormously popular genre couldn't ask for a better introduction than Anderson's lively and informative survey. Anderson, the Washington Post weekly thriller reviewer and self-described "middlebrow," explains why the genre has come to dominate bestseller lists in recent years: "Decades of war, recession, and political and corporate corruption have made Americans more cynical—or realistic—and thus more open to novels that examine the dark side of our society." Then he quickly covers the 19th-century pioneers (Poe, Collins, Conan Doyle) and the early 20th-century greats (Christie, Hammett, Chandler). The book hits its stride with a chapter on the modern thriller's birth in the 1980s. The author champions such contemporary writers as Thomas Harris, George P. Pelecanos, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, but isn't afraid to condemn the work of such bestsellers as James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell. While the generous plot descriptions might spoil a novel like The Silence of the Lamb for those who have never read Harris, this personal, opinionated guide will satisfy even those well versed in the genre. Anderson is also the author of The President's Mistress and eight other novels. (Feb. 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Thrillers, argues Anderson, who reviews the genre for the Washington Post, have become the "white-hot center of American fiction." That premise is difficult to prove or disprove, but it's indisputable that a higher percentage of contemporary best-sellers fall broadly into a category that could be called thrillers and, more important, that thrillers, because they are attracting more serious writers these days, are better on the whole than they have ever been. Anderson, who uses the term thriller in its broadest possible sense, as virtually synonymous with crime novel (once you throw out the coziest of cozies), begins by tracing the genre's roots (Poe, Collins, Conan Doyle) and nodding toward the hard-boiled classics (Chandler and Hammett), but his real focus is the contemporary scene, and he capably surveys subgenres (legal thrillers, literary thrillers, spy novels) and identifies four authors he considers modern masters (Pelecanos, Lehane, Connelly, and Harris), defending his choices effectively. The book suffers from way too much plot summary (spoilers galore!), which slows the otherwise jaunty pace, but that aside, Anderson offers an informative and insightful guide to the world of thrillers. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1St Edition edition (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345481232
• ISBN-13: 978-0345481238
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,683,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Decent Book on Thrillers, but Very Highly Opinionated, March 13, 2007

By 

Thriller Lover (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction (Hardcover)

Every Monday, Patrick Anderson writes a book review column for the Washington Post. Instead of covering literary books, Anderson reviews what is popularly known as "thriller" fiction. THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER is Anderson's effort to explain the history and popularity of thrillers, as well as offer his opinion of today's best thriller writers.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER is a highly informative book overall. Anderson produces a short history of the thriller as a genre, and provides his opinions of writers as diverse as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Lawrence Sanders and John McDonald. He also focuses a lot of attention on modern thriller writers, including the four authors he considers "modern masters" -- Michael Connelly, Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos.

I liked this book, because I enjoy reading thrillers. But THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER has some real problems. Most notably, it's highly slanted in favor of Anderson's view of what a good "thriller" is supposed to be. In Anderson's opinion, the best thrillers are serious, dark novels that explore deep psychological issues. For example, Anderson does not consider John Sandford to be a modern master. Why? Because, in Anderson's words, Sanford is "too entertaining" to be taken seriously. Since when is being entertaining a liability? In taking this position, Anderson's views border on the literary elitism that he decries in the later chapters of this book.

Also, Anderson has a rather elastic definition of what a thriller is. Is Sue Grafton a thriller writer? He seems to believe so, but I always thought that Grafton wrote mysteries. And why include Sue Grafton and not Robert Parker? Why isn't Harlan Coben even mentioned? He writes some of the best thrillers around. And what about medical thriller writers like Robin Cook, Michael Palmer, and Tess Gerritsen? Or psychological thriller writers like Jonathan Kellerman and Stephen White? They are all completely ignored. Instead, Anderson devotes precious pages to a writer like Nicholas Sparks, who nobody in their right mind would categorize as a thriller writer.

Mr. Anderson also offers some unorthodox opinions about certain prominent writers. For example, he largely dismisses Robert Crais and Lee Child as writers who do not write about "interesting characters" but "killing machines." Anderson has a right to his opinion, but this view is totally out of the mainstream, given the enormous amount of critical and popular acclaim that both Mr. Child's and Mr. Crais's books have deservedly received. My advice is to give both writers a try -- they are two of the best thriller authors in the business.

In short, THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER is okay, but it essentially boils down to one man's rather idiosyncratic opinion of what good thrillers are. In the end, your satisfaction with this book will depend on how in sync you are with Anderson's personal tastes. In my personal opinion, this book is worth a look, but it should be taken with a heavy grain of salt.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Changing Times, September 1, 2007

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction (Hardcover)

Beyond a doubt, the best seller lists of today bear little resemblance to best seller lists of the '50s and '60s that were dominated by novels about movie stars, sex, money and the wanton lifestyles of those who had more money than sense. Those lists were dominated by writers like Harold Robbins, Irving Stone, Jacqueline Susann, Herman Wouk and James Michener. According to Anderson, it was the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the "end of innocence for a generation," that made possible a move by the thriller genre to near domination of today's best seller lists.

The Triumph of the Thriller is perfect for those readers not familiar with the thriller genre because Anderson provides its history beginning with what he considers to be the "first great crime thriller," Mario Puzo's The Godfather, right up to the best thriller fiction being written today. Along the way he gives credit to those who most influenced today's thriller writers, starting with Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Dashiell Hammett, moving on to Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Ed McBain, Ross MacDonald and Charles Williford, and finishing with today's class.

Anderson finds that the "triumph of the thriller reached a tipping point in 1981" when, for the first time, four thrillers were on the list of the top 15 sellers for the year. Along the way, there were some breakthrough books that made it all possible: Deliverance by James Dickey, First Blood by David Morrell, Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon and The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders, among them.

My "To Be Read List" has grown by at least three dozen books as a result of chapters in which Anderson discusses the best writers and books in the several sub-genres included under the thriller umbrella. There are chapters titled: "Dangerous Women," "Lawyers at Large," "Spy Masters" and "Literary Thrillers," all of which, added books and writers to my list for future reading. But, I have to admit that it was even more fun to read what Anderson had to say about certain authors that I've learned to avoid over the last few years. He shows them no mercy.

As he says, "They deal in clichés, stereotypes, cheap thrills, and ridiculous plots. Some of them can't help it - that's how their minds work - but others deliberately dumb down their work because a lot of money is made that way." Chief among the culprits? Let's start with James Patterson whom Anderson calls "a writer to avoid at all costs" and whose book The Beach House "unfolds like an unspeakably dumb comic book" that "no one with even a minimal appreciation of good writing could possibly read for pleasure." Anderson believes that Patterson has set the standard for bad writing to such a degree that he even accuses David Baldacci with his Hour Game of having "entered the James Patterson Really Bad Thriller Sweepstakes."

Anderson goes on to skewer Patricia Cornwell (Trace), David Lindsey (The Face of the Assassin), Jeffrey Archer (The Eleventh Commandment), Nicholas Sparks (The Rescue) and Tom Clancy (for everything). With the exception of the fact that I enjoyed some of Lindsey's early work, I have no quarrel with Anderson's assessment of this group. But as Anderson says:

"So what are we to do about all this deplorable fiction? In the long term, our nation must spend fewer billions on foreign wars and more on literacy programs. In the short term, reviewers (heroic fellows, for the most part) must steer people away from this schlock and toward all those good writers out there.

We would also do well to look on the bright side. There is so much wonderful writing. To be a book lover in America today, able to enjoy the wealth of fine writing that we and the rest of the world produce, is to be blessed. Ultimately, the purveyors of crap are only a nuisance."

The bottom line is this. If you are already a lover of thriller fiction, this book will provide you with a quick and easy way to expand your world. If you know little about the genre, maybe even looking down your nose a bit at it and its authors, the book should make you aware of some of the great writing that you've been missing. Then the rest is up to you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well it was bound to be subjective and patchy, May 1, 2007

By 

The Chalcenteric Kid (Boca Raton) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction (Hardcover)

Given how thin the book it, it was bound to be quite superficial and selective in its treatment of authors. I have no problem with that. I read this book to get some ideas on who might be good to read now having grown up on the classsics like Chandler, Ross MacDonald and Agatha Christie. Because he does write some quite detailed analyses ( in particular his treatment of Chandler ), the book was bound in other places to just become a litany of "I like this one and the plot is...". That was OK. It was what I wanted. No Harlan Coben was fine with me too. In fact I liked the brief chapter where he put the knife in the authors he really didn't care for best of all.

So, a short book, very subjective, very superficial in parts, very patchy in its coverage. But still pretty interesting for all that.