Jonathan Miles has worked as a contributing editor at Men's Journal since 2001, where he writes features and book columns, and also penned a feature on bar fights which appeared in the 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing anthology. He has an article in the upcoming December issue of Men's Journal in which he selects his picks for the 15 best thrillers ever written:
15. Havana, by Stephen Hunter
14. Red Lights, by Georges Simenon
13. From Russia With Love, by Ian Fleming
12. The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley
11. Hard Revolution, by George Pelecanos
10. The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan
9. Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone
8. The Deep Blue Goodbye, by John D. MacDonald
7. Freedomland, by Richard Price
6. The Great Escape, by Paul Brickhill
5. The Tears of Autumn, by Charles McCarry
4. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
3. Kill Shot, by Elmore Leonard
2. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John le Carré
1. Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household
Although I haven't found any statistics to indicate any trends on the subject in the crime fiction publishing world, a look down the various bestseller lists indicates thrillers have definitely hit the big time, taking many of the top slots on those lists. Washington Post critic Patrick Anderson even wrote a new book titled The Triumph of the Thriller, which Sarah Weinman and friends discussed in a recent Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.
I have a few thriller-related links in The List under Topics, but the principal platform on the Web is the Thriller Writers site, also home of the annual Thrillerfest.
You can also read an article on "Secrets to Writing Best-Selling Thrillers," by noted author Gayle Linds on the Backspace site.
By the way, if you want to watch a bunch of crime fiction writers in animated discussion, just throw out the question, "What defines a thriller? Discuss," and watch the fur fly.
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