What Makes a Killer Thriller?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Natalie Kitroeff** (0:34)
Hi everyone, it's Natalie. If you're not yet a Times subscriber, we have some news for you. You can enjoy full access to the Times without a paywall for 30 days. All you have to do is download the app to get your first month completely free. If you're already a Times subscriber, you rock. Thank you. Okay, on to today's show. From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroeff. This is The Daily on Sunday. It's the middle of August, and that can mean only one thing. Across the country, people are popping open their beach chairs, digging their umbrellas into the sand, and settling in to their favorite books. Of all the literary genres to bring with you on vacation, for me and millions of Americans, there's one that stands above the rest, and that is the thriller.
Thrillers dominate bestseller lists. They get adapted into hit movies. They don't let you put them down. So this month, our colleagues at the Book Review released their list of the 50 best thrillers of the century. Today, I speak with our in-house expert on the thriller genre, reporter Sarah Lyall, and also the great author, Tana French, who has four books on this list.
It's Sunday, August 16th.
Sarah, you are our resident expert on thrillers here at the New York Times. You have a monthly column on the genre for our book section. And I think of you as my personal encyclopedia because this is my favorite kind of book, always has been, always will be. Actually, I have a group of friends at the Times that feels the same. And we've done this thing where we deputize one person to write to you and ask for your personal recommendations for must reads. We will read anything you say. You are our leader, so welcome to the Sunday Daily.

**Sarah Lyall** (2:41)
Okay, that's a huge responsibility, but I will do my best. It's great to be here, thank you.

**Natalie Kitroeff** (2:47)
Okay, I want to get to this massive and fascinating list that you all just put together of the best thrillers of the century. But before we do, can you please just give me a baseline? What defines a thriller in your mind?

**Sarah Lyall** (3:01)
Well, I think as you say, it's a pretty personal understanding. There's no real definition of a thriller. But I would say at the heart, it has to have a lot of suspense. It has to have a plot that moves you along. You have to be dying to find out what happened.

**Natalie Kitroeff** (3:17)
And what about the mystery element? Is that a necessity?

**Sarah Lyall** (3:21)
Well, mystery is a very broad term. And in some sense, sort of any book that you really love, there's some sort of thriller mystery element in it. I mean, is Charlotte going to be able to save Wilbur, for example? That's a great mystery.

**Natalie Kitroeff** (3:35)
From Charlotte's Web.

**Sarah Lyall** (3:36)
From Charlotte's Web, yeah.

**Natalie Kitroeff** (3:38)
Fair enough. Okay. So what's your origin story with the genre? Like, how did you get into it?

**Sarah Lyall** (3:44)
So I think like a lot of neglected children of the 1970s and early 80s, I was left alone in houses with random books that people would leave there. And I have to say though, I did probably start with Nancy Drew. Like a lot of people, you know, there's so many of those books. It's where I learned a lot of vocabulary words. I learned what secluded means. For years, I thought that deceased meant dying of some awful disease. Like I didn't realize it was just dying.
And then I graduated to Agatha Christie's, which often seemed to be in a lot of these houses. And it was some time before my mom told me you didn't pronounce Agatha Agatha.
And then when I was probably in fifth or sixth grade, there was this book called The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien, a great children's writer. And my friend Michelle had one copy of it. And we were in the back of her parents' station wagon driving from Cape Cod to New York at night after some weekend with a flashlight. And we were both desperate to find out what happened. And we'd each read a chapter and then unwillingly hand it over to the other person. And I read three times as quickly as she did. And I'm like, hurry up. And we were eating chocolate chip cookies. And it was so incredible.