The book's more effective writers are at least able to do this with economy. (From J.A. Konrath: "Bang bang and he was a paycheck for the coroner.") But there is plenty of overwriting here, too. (From Heather Graham: "The wind railed with the sharpness of a banshee's shriek.") And some of it wouldn't get past a high school English teacher. (From M. Diane Vogt: "The night-light illuminated him enough that the camera would record perfectly.")
Thriller slows down for a couple of incongruous period pieces, like The Double Dealer by David Liss, with its 18th-century setting and emphasis on flatulence, or The Tuesday Club, by Katherine Neville, featuring Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and other well-known Americans in Paris. ("One might be lonely in Paris, thought Abigail Adams with chagrin -- but one could surely never be alone!")
The only dated stories of real interest are those that trace the thriller's evolution. Success of a Mission, by Dennis Lynds, offers a glimpse of Arab-American relations circa 1968 and expertly deploys old-school espionage tricks like microfilm hidden in a piece of halvah.
The best of this book's contributors illustrate why quick
thinking is more interesting than a thumb in the eye ("going all the way through the cornea, the meniscus, and into the brain," in the words of David Dun).
The most welcome discovery, for readers new to the thriller
universe, is F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack. The character is enjoyably well drawn, and he's no James Bond: Interlude at Duane's centers on a robbery at a Duane Reade drugstore in New York and calls on Jack to outsmart the thieves with whatever he can find amid the merchandise. It's the rare story here that has a beginning, middle and ending, as well as some neat tricks in between.
Though many of its authors write books that move quickly, Thriller itself is surprisingly slow going. That's because each story's contrivances take getting used to. And the more far-fetched they are, the harder that is.
One moment the hook is drug-smuggling in Albania; at another it's the blackmailing of a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Even the switch from Christopher Rice (secret homosexuality) to Chris-topher Reich (fine dining) is more difficult than it sounds.
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