A history of the thriller

Art of Suspense at the 92 St Y

I've been reading thrillers for longer than I've been writing them. Over time, I've put my ideas on how thrillers work and why we love to read them into a lecture – The Art of Suspense.

Starting with the first real thriller – Erskine Childer's 'The Riddle of the Sands,' and covering the works of John Buchan, Zane Grey, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Thomas Harris (amongst others) I trace how thrillers have developed.

The historical events that helped drive the development of thrillers, the effect of the Dreyfus trial, Hamlet as an assassin, the impact of the world wars on how we see ourselves ... this history of the thriller will be of interest to students of literature and would-be writers.

I delivered The Art of Suspense at the famous 92nd St Y in New York in 2006 (on Halloween!), and it was filmed.

Watch The Art of Suspense

Watch a streaming video version of the evening in four parts (the player will open in a new window). It is around an hour in length. Most browsers will play these clips, but if not, you will need a recent version of the free Adobe Flash player.

›› Follow these links to watch the video: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The Art of Suspense 'chapters'

1	Introduction	10	Agatha Christie
2	Erskine Childers	11	Dashiell Hammet
3	John Buchan	12	Dennis Wheatley
4	E Phillips Oppenheim	13	Mickey Spillane
5	Zane Grey	14	Ian Fleming
6	William Tufnell Le Queux	15	After Bond
7	Joseph Conrad	16	Thomas Harris
8	The standard thriller	17	Q&A
9	The psychological thriller

• The DVD version is no longer available for order.