Superpower politics is an eternal subject for thriller writers. The genre matured with the Cold War – which also led to many classic espionage thrillers. What will be the next big topic for political thrillers? China? I think so, and I wrote about it at length here.
There are, though, other types of political thrillers, which may just cover the politics within a particular government, even a political party. ‘Gorky Park’ by Martin Cruz Smith is one that comes to mind, although some would describe it as detective fiction. There are, inevitably overlaps between genres and sub-genres, and many books will be tagged with several categories.
‘The Hunt for Red October’ is a political thriller in many aspects, but also one of the classic techno-thrillers.
- The book that Reagan read – maybe the only one? I don’t know, but this is a master exposition of the techno-thriller. Certainly, for most aficionados of thriller novels, this ranks up there with Day of the Jackal. There’s a Video Trailer too.
