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THE TWENTY-FIVE BOOKS

Monthly Archives: April 2014

21. A Dark-Adapted Eye

The 25 Books - Crime Thriller Novels.

9780141040189Writing as Barbara Vine, crime novellist Ruth Rendell has produced some deeply unsettling and gripping standalone thrillers – the best of which is this dark tale of sisterly envy. It’s narrated by Faith, whose aunt Vera murdered her aunt Eden years before, and was hanged for it. What happened to bring death between these formerly loving sisters? Faith tells the story of the family and her secretive, fussy aunts, throughout the war and after, the secrets they shared, the lovers, and possibly even the child…

You should read it because it uses first-person voice so brilliantly, and is a great example of a narrator who’s as much in the dark as we are, and also for how to do an unresolved crime ending which leaves us profoundly unnerved. You’ll be thinking and wondering about this book for years to come, and the impending sense of doom, carried on through twenty years of narration, is expertly done.

22. The Constant Gardener

The 25 Books - Crime Thriller Novels.

The plot of The Constant Gardener is, on paper, like that of a typical thriller. Justin Quayle, a diplomat based in Nairobi, has a young and beautiful wife, Tessa. When she’s found murdered along with a younger man, Justin realises he knew very little about her life. As he tries to untangle the web she’s left for him, he discovers she was investigating a big chemical company, who will stop at nothing to cover up Tessa’s research.

As Justin’s chase takes him all over Africa, America, and Europe, you’d be forgiven for thinking this sounds like any thriller. What makes it different is the remarkable use of voice and viewpoint, the density of detail, and the recreation of grief and memory on the page. Read it to see how dense, beautiful prose can still be gripping, and how the thriller-plot structure can be elevated to something unique and special.

 

23. Tokyo

The 25 Books - Crime Thriller Novels.

downloadMo Hayder’s first stand-alone novel was published in 2004. Its main protagonist is Grey, a traumatised young woman who moves to Tokyo to track down an expert in the Japanese invasion of China during the Second World War, for reasons unexplained. She then gets caught up in some extremely grisly events. Her narrative is intercut with the memories of the academic, who was living with his pregnant wife in Nanjing, China, as the Japanese army came inexorably closer.

You should read it because: it’s a brilliant example of an unreliable narrator, who is too disturbed to really think about what happened to them; it’s very moving while also being visceral, gory, and in parts terrifying; it’s a great example of how to use two narratives to create tension.

24. Murder on the Orient Express

The 25 Books - Crime Thriller Novels, Uncategorized.

Ah, the glamour of the trans-continental Orient Express. Waiters in tuxedos, cocktails at six…..and murder.

In the world of Agatha Christie, murder is often an act of justice, and the victim isn’t mourned. We don’t feel their tragic loss, as they doubtless deserved to meet a sticky end. They can appear like mannequins, just cogs in the function of the plot. Despite the rather brutal multiple stabbing in this book, the murder feels cosy, contained, part of a world of wealth and certainty. Hercule Poirot is travelling on the train when a fellow passenger is stabbed. In the enclosed world of the express (the locked room trope being another delicious feature of Christie) he begins to suspect the other passengers aren’t quite the random bunch they appear to be.

Read it for: a lesson in how to assemble suspects and clues, how to use setting and enclosed spaces, and for one of the most famous twist endings in crime writing. And also because you’ll enjoy being steeped in the Old World glamour of stabbings before dinner.

25. The Silence of the Lambs

The 25 Books - Crime Thriller Novels, Uncategorized.

Although this wasn’t the first outing for Hannibal Lecter (that was RED DRAGON), this book really made the author’s career, and in many ways created the modern serial killer genre – as well as the anti-hero.

Rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling is sent to interview incarcerated psychopath Dr Hannibal Lecter, in the hope he can help them track a brutal serial killer who skins his victims alive. Lecter leads her on a chase, drip-feeding enigmatic clues, doing his best to get under her skin. Meanwhile, the killer has kidnapped a Senator’s daughter, and the clock is ticking to find her alive.

It’s hard to read the book now without picturing the superlative film, but it was ground-breaking in the creation of a compelling, unique villain, the extreme violence of both the killer and Lecter’s past cannibalism, and also in the constant upping of tension as Lecter escapes and Clarice closes in on the killer. The characterisation, dialogue, and settings are also brilliantly evoked, proving that a blood-soaked gripping thriller can still also be well written.

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