Political Thrillers

My first book, Hour of the Manatee was a political thriller, as well as a P.I. novel. As a written genre, it spans a very wide gamut from historical to contemporary (to fantasy, for that matter, such as the Songs of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones) by George R.R. Martin.

If there is one name that, in my humble opinion deserves to be at the top of the list it would be the master of historical fiction: Ken Follett.

Follett started out as a journalist, but that work did not agree with him, so he moved on to publishing, with a small London publisher. He started writing in his spare time, motivated by the need to pay for car repairs (sound familiar, anyone?). While that didn't pay off, but when he was ready to go to publication (almost self-publishing, in a way) his first book--a spy thriller--Eye of the Needle-- was a huge international bestseller, selling more than 10 million copies. A true real-life fairy tale once again: a huge success on one's first book, with immediate wealth and fame along with it.

I don't know how he managed to motivate himself work again, but work again he did, 

From Wikipedia:

The next three novels, Night Over Water (1991), A Dangerous Fortune (1993) and A Place Called Freedom (1995) were more historical than thriller, but he returned to the thriller genre with The Third Twin (1996) which in the Publishing Trends annual survey of international fiction best-sellers for 1997 was ranked no. 2 worldwide, after John Grisham's The Partner. His next work, The Hammer of Eden (1998), was another contemporary suspense story followed by a Cold War thriller, Code to Zero (2000).

Ken Follett with the German edition of his book Whiteout in October 2005.

My favorite of Follett's works would have to be the Kingsbridge series, set in medieval England in a small rural river town where a huge, beautiful cathedral is being constructed. These long historical novels were not political thrillers, but the third book, A Column of Fire (which I've just finished and loved) is both historically accurate, and riddled with political intrigue. This is set during the reign of Elizabeth I in England, her conflicts with Mary, Queen of Scots, war between Papist Catholics and English Puritans; the horrific attempted extermination of the Huguenots in France, and the Spanish Armada. I just finished reading this literary epic and it is brilliant (and suspenseful as well, with heroes and villains of purest sort.

Political thrillers go back to Alexander Dumas in France, with his Three Musketeers books loaded with political conspiracies. Joseph Conrad even contributed to this new genre with The Secret Agent. 

But the political thriller became a real hard-boiled action genre with the onset of the Cold War. 

Graham Greene began the action with The Quiet American (1955) which chronicled the American involvement in Vietnam, beginning with the Indochina War. 

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) by Richard Condon (who never set foot in China or knew anything about it, by his own admission--I myself spent three years in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province in China. Once known as Manchuria). America was paranoid in the extreme, back then, at a time when the West knew almost nothing about Mao Zedong (prior to Nixon's bold visit to China in 1972, which literally opened the door: an inch or so, anyway). Congress was in the hands of McCarthy and HUAC. So Condon's thriller was a best-seller and major motion picture. But historically accurate it was not. 

Frederick Forsyth published The Day of the Jackal in 1971: a thriller in which an assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle must be foiled.

Jeffrey Archer , an Oxford-educated British MP (Member of Parliament, not Military Police) wrote Kane and Abel in 1979. While his works were not always critically acclaimed, K&A was a bestseller 

Daniel Silva was another successful author of the political thriller. Son of Portuguese immigrants, he grew up in the Midwest, went to college at California State U. in Fresno, he became a journalist with UPI, (like my soon-to-be published Jake Fleming), covered the DC circuit for CNN, and was dispatched to the Middle East based in Egypt, 

His first novel, based on personal experience, was The Unlikely Spy, published in 1996. Again it was a bestseller, enabling Silva to leave CNN and write full time. To date he's published 20 spy novels, all of them NY Times bestsellers.

In film, the political thriller has been a staple. Alfred Hitchcock directed the now-classic The Man Who Knew Too Much starring James Stewart, in 1956: yet another assassination-prevention escapade. But who can forget Doris Day singing 'Que Sera, Sera."

The Manchurian Candidate was filmed by John Frankenheimer in 1962. Another all-star cast including Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury (who got an Oscar nomination).

From Wikipedia:

All the President's Men is based on the Watergate Scandal. Other examples of political thrillers are Seven Days in May, Z, Three Days of the Condor, V For Vendetta, Romero, City Hall, Air Force One, Snowden and The Post. Several post-9/11 political thriller films refer to the September 11 attacks or terrorism in general.

For Television Shonda Rhimes' produced Scandal, which contains definite elements of the political thriller. 

House of Cards, originally a BBC drama set in the Margaret Thatcher era in the UK, was adapted as an American series starring Kevin Spacey, about whom the less said the better. 

I've been watching the ABC/Netflix series Designated Survivor (2018), starring Kiefer Sutherland, in which a low-level Cabinet member is plunged into high drama after terrorists strike the Capital during the State of the Union speech.

Another import from Europe is 2015's Okkupert (Norwegian for 'occupied.'). A hit in Norway, then the UK, it is also now on Netflix.

Even the Phillippines got in on the action, with Wildflower, in 2017. This is a daring thriller in which a young woman seeks vengeance against a dictatorial regime (definitely for real now) for murdering her family.

Tom Clancy has monopolized bookstores (or rather the only surviving franchise, Barnes & Noble) with his Jack Ryan thrillers, always with a military angle and i.m.h.o. overly right wing for my taste.

The 2018 British series Bodyguard, about a British Army veteran with PTSD who is striving to protect an ambitious Home Secretary, offers a similar sentiment to mine re. Clancy: he despises everything she stands for.

Next: Police Procedurals.

E.C.