Andrew Taylor

In search of fresh villains

issue 23 July 2005

More than any other literary form, perhaps, the thriller is at the mercy of history — especially that branch of the genre that deals with the rise and fall of empires, the clash of ideologies and the dirty secrets of nations. In the past, most thriller writers, from Buchan to Fleming and beyond, dealt with clear and, above all, present dangers to the body politic. They were concerned, some more plausibly than others, with a world their authors and readers recognised as contemporary.

But history has changed direction, and so has the thriller. With the end of the Cold War, the genre has been forced to come to terms with the awkward fact that it no longer has a straightforwardly villainous villain. After decades of satisfactory service, neither Nazi Germany nor Soviet Russia is available for duty. It’s as if Satan had resigned from the cast list of Paradise Lost without even considering the inconvenience his departure would cause the rest of the dramatis personae.

As a result, the modern thriller has developed a retrogressive tendency and often looks for its inspiration to the past, when matters were more straightforwardly arranged than they are now.

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