I love the genre but I want to know some things that irk you about the genre. Also if you have any recommendations for ones unique ones in the genre I would appreciate it.
I’ll start with the one that has bothered me. For novels where they are hunting a killer, and the main character has a kid or neighbor that they care about, you can guarantee that said loved one is getting kidnapped. It is so predictable and played out. If that is the best twist you have, why bother?
A great recommendation I have is Malice. It is a fantastic and unique Japanese crime novel. Left me thinking about it for weeks.
by baconmehungry
9 Comments
I hate the super hacker that can hack any computer in the world undetected and works for the greater good.
Stories where you only have the POV of the main character and they go “Aha, of course.” to something that seems completely unrelated. Then proceeds to never explain anything until the final pages. Doubly so for something that isn’t foreshadowed before, like they know the killer’s calling card when it is never brought up previously and the audience couldn’t put it together.
Basically, if the POV character discovers something “on camera”, I feel cheated if they don’t explain it just so it can be a twist later on.
The random civic-affiliated guy introduced 1/3rd of the way into the story “This is Mr. Smith he’s the company owner/attorney/???? in town. He’s glad your hear to help the investigation”
–Yep He’ll be the killer.
Crime novels or films, the things that irritate me the most, in no particular order, are:
Misinformation about firearms. Usually these involve the safety on a revolver, but include political diatribes that are anti-gun.
Women who are Nth-Degree black belts and kick the snot out of a dozen men who outweigh them by fifty pounds or more and are experienced brawlers. My willing suspension of disbelief snaps so hard it leaves welts.
Heroes who don’t deserve to win. At the end of the story, ask yourself if your hero deserved to win, because many don’t.
Bad grammar. Books should be proofread more than once, yet I find grammatical errors and occasionally holes in the plot.
Characters who violate their own ambit. Every character in the story has an expected ambit of actions. For instance, the kindly old proprietor of the local grocery store doesn’t poison people. The beat cop doesn’t beat people to death. The characters must meet or exceed the expectations that the author set up in the beginning.
There are others, but those are the main irritants.
Whenever the body can’t be identified, because the head has been completely destroyed. You just know 9/10 times they’re going to pull a ‘twist’ where the ‘victim’ is really alive (and probably orchestrated the whole crime).
I like how you brought up Malice.
A common trope I’ve noticed in thriller/crime novels is how callous life seems to be treated. Life seems to be viewed rather cheaply. What I like about Keigo Higashino is the humane approach he uses to write his novels. The victim doesn’t cease to be a person because they are no longer living which gives the story bigger emotional impact by portraying it as the tragedy it is.
Same with William Kent. Krueger. Especially with Wendigo Island. The themes of generational trauma and forgiveness made me want to cry.
Selective interiority, where we get access to some characters’ thoughts and perceptions, but the resolution of the story depends on thoughts and perceptions that we don’t get access to. For example, the new B.A. Paris novel: >!we get viewpoint chapters from the protagonist, in which we do find out what she’s thinking, but it’s only in the epilogue where she speaks in third person that we really know what was going on. Withholding information this way for the sake of a twist feels like cheating.!<
I feel that the game of cat-and-mouse between the criminal and FBI/police is often done poorly. As in it just isn’t realistic.
Thrillers where the big twist is that the villain/killer was the main character’s spouse all along. It’s so overdone at this point I expect most thriller novels to end with the love interest being guilty of something.