Thrillers

After years of intellectual nourishment from thrillers, along with the delights of suspense, Fraser explores the thought-processes of representative thriller characters coping with high-tension situations that require intelligent problem-solving and bring their values into a sharper focus. With alert empathy, he follows Jack Carter as he hunts down his brothers killers in Ted Lewiss masterpiece Jacks Return Home (a kind of dark English Gatsby) ; suffers along with violence-averse Rae Ingram coping alone on a small yacht with a dangerous paranoid in Dead Calm (a philosophical thriller) by that fine Gold Medal novelist Charles Williams; and gives a lot of attention to Donald Hamiltons young professional men entangled with enigmatic young women in pre-Helm works like The Steel Mirror (1948) where he was learning his craft. In a fourth chapter, he hacks at the wall between art and entertainment and loose talk about the world of the thriller. Lastly, he reminiscences about a fascinating safari that he made into the sex-n-violence Mushroom Jungle (British pulp fiction ca.1946-54), and offers conclusions about violence and peace.He avoids jargon, combines an aficionados enthusiasm with a scholars accuracy, quotes generously to convey the texture of a work, provides background information for readers new to the topic, and illuminates craft aspects of fiction in general. His emphasis throughout is positive.