Mysteries and thrillers…
Many of us love them, but the modern versions have changed a lot.
First, as genres categorizing stories, they’re too general. Add “psychological” or “legal” to each one and you’ll have too common subgenres. Add “romantic” to each one and you’ll have two more. Second, they’ve become more violent and sexy, the latter now including LGBTQ themes and S&M, so much so that Victorian readers would be shocked. That just means that they’ve kept pace with changing times, of course, and become more realistic.
We’re all familiar with Holmes and Watson, but there were other early characters like Father Brown who began to change the mystery landscape. H. Rider Haggard’s adventure stories (surely Indiana Jones owes something to them) morphed into the thriller genre. (Maybe Star Trek owes something to Jason and the Argonauts, but I digress.)
Even the classical who-done-its (Christie comes to mind) have changed. How-it-was-done has become more important, sometimes blurring the line between mystery and thriller. Many of my own novels lie on that fuzzy boundary. (For example, Rembrandt’s Angel starts like a classical Christie mystery and ends up a thriller.) In my case, I’m experimenting a bit, with telling a good story always the goal.
The usual distinction between the two genres are often as follows: In a mystery, some villain commits a crime, and the protagonist must figure out who did the deed. In a thriller, the reader usually knows who the villain is and what he plans, and readers learn how the protagonist prevents the deed from happening. This is over-simplification, of course, but I ask: Why not both? In particular, a lesser crime can lead to the protagonist discovering a major conspiracy in the process of solving that crime. Even my first published book Full Medical, the plot was like that (so it’s a sci-fi mystery/thriller!).
Does all this confuse readers? I hope not. Fiction is storytelling, and good stories can be told in many ways. While I dedicate Rembrandt’s Angel to Agatha and her two great characters, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, I don’t follow her plot plan.
This brings me back to the point that today’s fiction must appeal to today’s audiences. Times have changed, and, to follow Clancy’s maxim, fiction must seem real. While we often read “the classics,” new fiction, even historical fiction, should have themes that resonate with today’s readers. Even fiction that is pure escapism must resonate with the readers who read it.
That’s the writing end of publishing fiction. Getting the book in front of readers to entertain them is a bigger problem. There are so many good books and good authors today that, no matter how good an author’s book is, if readers don’t know about it, the book will not enjoy much success. Many authors (I’m in that class) aren’t good at marketing our books, but there’s one thing for sure: If we don’t write an entertaining mystery/thriller/whatever—that is, tell a good story—our fiction can’t even begin to find an audience.
Bottom line: Whether authors call it a mystery or thriller novel, crime fiction or police procedural, they have to tell a good story. That’s the first step.
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Did you miss Rembrandt’s Angel? Both that novel and my novel The Collector present my unique thesis that stolen artwork can be used as collateral for other nefarious criminal activity. In Rembrandt’s Angel (Penmore Press, 2017), Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent, has to manage Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone’s obsession with recovering the Rembrandt, “An Angel with Titus’ Features,” stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. Esther’s mission becomes deadlier and different from her usual cases in the Art and Antiques Division of the Yard. The duo takes readers on a wild tour of Europe and South America before the story reaches its thrilling climax, as they find out what the stolen paintings are used to finance. In the process, the couple’s romantic interludes become a full-blown romance. Available on Amazon, Smashwords and its affiliates (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc), and in most bookstores (if they don’t have it, ask for it).
The earlier novel, The Collector, also features Esther and Bastiann in cameo roles, and he also appears in Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths. These three ebooks are available on Amazon and Smashwords.
All of these books can be read independently.
Want free fiction? Peruse my list of PDFs on the “Free Stuff & Contests” webpage and follow the directions for downloading. (Or you can just go to the OneDrive folder.) You’ll find many stories there, including mysteries. Or are they thrillers?
The Great Spring Thaw Sale still continues on Smashwords.
In libris libertas!
