I’m a sucker for books like Morrell & Wagner’s Thrillers: 100 Must Reads. Morrell & Wagner came up with a list of 100 thrillers and asked authors of thrillers to write essays about them. From “Theseus and the Minotaur” (1500 B. C.), essay by Lee Child, to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003), essay by Steve Berry, you’ll find a broad cross-section of thrillers in this collection. Of course, I have my favorites. I really liked Max Allan Collins’ essay on Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night 1951). Joe R. Lansdale’s essay on James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) almost motivated me to drop everything and reread Cain’s classic. One of the more surprising inclusions was R. L. Stine’s essay on P. G. Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning (1929), a book I hadn’t considered in the thriller category. Of the 100 thrillers listed, I’d read 76. Now I have to find time to read those last 24 thrillers. GRADE: A
I love these books, too. Phil went to the panel on this at Bouchercon and found it very interesting. I read my copy of MURDER INK and MURDERESS INK till they fell apart 25 years ago.
My only quibble about THRILLERS: 100 MUST READS concerns the early selections like THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY, Patti. I would have started the thriller list with the 20th Century and skipped historical titles.
Like you I’m a sucker for these books, George. I’m going to get my hands on it. I always end up with a list of titles to add to the wish list.
The coverage of titles is solid, Jeff. I just wish they’d skipped the classics like Poe and gone right to thriller from the last 100 years.
wow, 76 of 100, that’s a lot, George. Excluding the historical titles, and not seeing the list, I’d bet I’ve read 10? But then, the definition of thriller may not be what I think of.
The editors cast a pretty wide net of what they considered to be “thrillers,” Rick. I’d bet you’ve read about 30 of these titles.
Checking the table of contents I estimate I’ve read about 58. Not bad, but no 76.
I went through a thriller binge in the 1970s, Jeff. I read hundreds of thrillers back then. Now, I’d estimate about 10% of my reading is thrillers. I’m about to start reading a Don Winslow thriller. Reading 58 out of 100 thrillers is pretty impressive, too!
I looked at the TOC and find that I’ve read 44 of them. Lees than Jeff, way less than George, but then I don’t read a lot of this, so the Bourne books most of the spy stuff I haven’t read. As you say, the definition is quite liberal.
Congratulations, Rick! You beat my estimate of 30. Yes, the thriller list contains plenty of classics. You would enjoy the essays about the books. I thought they were well written.
Half the fun of this kind of exercise is in challenging definitions. You’ll recall the “edgy” selections in the second 100 BEST HORROR collection, a book very much the model for this one (the first was 100 selections by the editors, the second a collection of essays by various writers, editors, et al. selecting a choice). But obscure modern gems probably could use the plug a lot more than THE ILLIAD, it’s true, unless one wants to warn people away from the Rouse translations…
Excellent point, Todd. I understand the editors attempt at giving the thriller credibility by claiming THE ILLIAD and the ODYSSEY are thrillers (which, I suppose is true), but the audience for books like THRILLERS: 100 MUST READS are not looking to read Homer. They want to read more books like THE DA VINCI CODE.
Or, like myself, are looking for books more like the ODYSSEY than they are like THE DA VINCI CODE, at least in terms of quality.
If you’re looking for more books like THE ODYSSEY, Todd, you need to be looking at Penguin Classics and the Oxford University Press offerings.
I’ll suggest that Graham Greene. Patricia Highsmith, and Robert Bloch thrillers are a Hell of a lot closer to the qualitiy of the early classics than to Dan Brown bibble.
You’ll get no argument from me on the quality of Greene, Highsmith, and Bloch, Todd. But folks that only read one book a year go to BORDERS or Barnes & Noble demanding “something like THE DA VINCI CODE.” Or worse, James Patterson.
Really? Patterson and his ghosts are even worse than Brown? Haven’t steeled myself to try the Patterson, et al.’s yet.
I liked Patterson’s early work, when he was actually writing those novels, Todd. Now, all Patterson does is outline novels and has his minions grind them out.