Lynne Patrick
A stressed-out woman whose memory keeps letting her down. Another woman abused by a bullying husband, then forced into an impossible dilemma. A common theme, kind of, and very much the stuff of one of my favourite crime fiction sub-genres: the psychological thriller.
We voracious readers are at a slight disadvantage when we read something like this. Just as, in a conventional police procedural we know the good cop is going to hunt down the bad guy and bring him/her to justice, in this kind of psychological thriller we have a pretty good idea that the hero/heroine really is telling the truth and someone is working on him/her to drive him/her to the edge.
But most books seem to pass the fifty-page test – so what turns a psychological drama into an edge-of-the-seat thriller? What, in other words, keeps the reader reading – even the kind of reader, of which I am assuredly one, whose scepticism and sense of 'oh, come on, guys, really?' has been honed by hundreds of other books?
At risk of repeating an old, old story – it's the characters. Fiction of any genre, any period, any style has to be about the characters. They have to come across as real people, and the reader has to care what happens to them. It doesn't have to be obvious who the bad guys are; they often present as on the side of the angels, and are as well drawn as the real angels. But when they're finally exposed for what they are, their motives have to be clear and credible, and there has to be a sense of 'Oh yeah, of course, why didn't I see?'. Even more important, the protagonist, the one under fire, can't be a wet heap slumped in the corner; he/she (usually she) has to have a tough streak, an edge of determination, and also be sympathetic enough to make the reader want right to triumph.
The two books I've summed up in a few words above all fulfil both these criteria. They are The Breakdown, by B A Paris, and The Choice by Samantha King.
They both fit firmly into the 'domestic noir' slot, which some would say was kickstarted by Gone Girl. I'm developing quite an affection for domestic noir; it seems to reflect what goes on in real lives rather more effectively than the larger-than-life serial killer fiction and police drama that seems to be in the majority in the bestseller lists and on the front table in big bookshops. More than that: for me, one major function of fiction is to reassure me that there really are answers to tough questions and solutions to big issues, that good does sometimes come out on top and the world isn't really such a grim place after all, so I'm going to lean towards books that tell me about lives that feel real.
Because, let's face it, the real world is more than usually grim at the moment. Two out-of-the-blue terrorist attacks (aren't they always out of the blue?) in as many weeks don't leave us Brits lying easy in our beds, especially when the police start running just-in-case 'exercises' in my own quiet little market town, which I'm told actually happened earlier this week, though I didn't witness it.
My not-quite-weekly posts seem to be turning into a several-part series entitled Why I Read. Over the past few weeks I seem to have covered making friends with the characters, visiting new places, and now reassuring myself that hope still lies at the bottom of Pandora's box. It's not deliberate; it's just kind of happening. I wonder what I'll add to the list of reasons next time...
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