Nuts and Bolts to the Eight Steps: Paul Tomlinson on Writing the Crime Thriller

INTERVIEW: “Thrillers are more complicated because there’s a lot more variation – many more sub-genres…. All the plots have much in common, but they all have distinct features that readers or film viewers demand – the genre conventions or tropes. Many writers don’t realise how important these are….”

“Making Amends” by Julian Grant

FICTION: “And then nothing…. I explained to them the importance of making amends, the value of a rigorous moral inventory and doing the right thing….”

“Writing from an Illusion: Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961)” by Matthew Sorrento

NONFICTION: “The Hammett detective seeks any clues he can but is unable to recreate narratives through induction/deduction, hence his need to shake things up and unlock loose parts in the disorder he has confronted….”

“Kitty at the Window” by Barry Gifford

NOVEL EXCERPT: “You like her, huh?”….“Just looking,” he said. “Do you know her?”

“Daniel Woodrell: Pulp Outlaw and Pioneer of Rural Noir” by William Blick

NONFICTION: “Woodrell’s visceral and raw prose, combined with precise perception of stark, menacing environments and characters’ flaws and virtues….deserves to be recognized as part of the American literary landscape in the tradition of Faulkner, O’Connor, and McCarthy….”

“The Ad-Man” by Brad K. Hawley

POETRY: “When I got there, my hands were empty…. with one detective who believed in me, I might have surrendered….”

“Peacemaker” by Gary D. Rhodes

POETRY: “My arm of fire…low and mournful….”

“The Stranger and the Etiquette of Post-War Life” by Richmond B. Adams

NONFICTION: “Welles’s war-time writings demonstrated his concern that America, even as it celebrated military victory, might, in its naiveté, overlook the possibility of a rebirth of ‘fascism in America’ which could take root among ‘the sons of America’s first families.’ It is the ways in which Welles blends such historical concerns to various ongoing cultural traditions that make The Stranger a far more important film noir than has been generally thought….”

“Marketing The Sleeping City to The City That Never Sleeps” by Kurt Brokaw

NONFICTION: “The Sleeping City, like so many crime dramas that labored away in the era, won’t make most noir fans’ top ten lists. But its marketing was reflective of its time, more than most noirs that started out trying to hold their theater marquees alone and ended up as the underside of drive-in double bills….”