Political Thrillers

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to the Clued in Mystery podcast. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. So Brooke, today we're going to talk about political thrillers. This is kind of like spy thriller for me, not a genre that I've read a ton in. I think I've watched more of this than I've read, but I'm looking forward to talking about this with you.

Speaker: I'm excited too. I have my hot cup of coffee and I'm looking forward to a great conversation. All right. Well, let's get started. So political thriller falls under the broader thriller genre. That means, you know, suspense is, is a really key element of the story compared to domestic thriller, which we talked about last week, uh, where we have a domestic setting with regular people living what appears to be a day to day life. That's often hiding a big secret.

Speaker: In political thrillers, the setting is international. The characters are often political decision makers and world leaders. There's often a character from the military and perhaps a character from a journalistic point of view.

Speaker: And at its core, the political thriller is also about secrets. But unlike the domestic thriller, where the stakes are high for a small number of people, in a political thriller, the stakes are high for entire cities or entire nations. So the research that I found suggests that political thrillers really emerged as a genre in the 1960s and the 1970s out of the US.

Speaker: Politically, this was a time of change in that country. And Brooke, you can jump in if my take on US history is a bit off. But the Cold War was happening, Vietnam War, there was a number of political movements that took place. So civil rights, women's movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and just really a kind of disenchantment

Speaker: political leadership, particularly following the Watergate scandal. So books and films from this era really center on conspiracy and corruption at the decision -making level. So think about all the president's men, the Manchurian candidate as examples from that era.

Speaker: And that kind of continued through the 80s and 90s. And then the last two decades, we've really seen stories that are focused on terrorism as the central threat. And that's, you know, I think really a reaction to September 11th.

Speaker: There's quite an overlap with spy fiction. A lot of the lists that I looked at have many of the same authors in both spy fiction and political thrillers. But I think that the difference is the perspective of the two. So with spy fiction, we're getting the story through the eyes of the spy. We're with George Smiley or we're with James Bond as they piece together information and navigate through the story.

Speaker: With political thrillers, the story typically unfolds through multiple points of view. And as the reader or the audience, you're not always sure who's telling the truth, which is, again, a similarity with the domestic thriller. In terms of authors, we have Tom Clancy, Bill Clinton and James Patterson, Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny.

Speaker: David Baldacci and Robert Harris, who wrote a book called The Ghost, which I thought was worth a mention because the main character is a ghost writer. Some examples from TV and film include 24, a designated survivor, both of which star Kiefer Sutherland, so maybe he's created a niche for himself in this genre. There's a Norwegian series on Netflix called Occupied,

Speaker: We talked about Homeland, I think, in the spy episode, but I think you could argue that it fits in both as a spy thriller and a political thriller. I think the underlying themes that we see in all of these is betrayal, corruption, and conspiracy at the highest level of government.

Speaker: So that's my really brief overview. You know, as I was doing this research, Brooke, I kind of realized that, yeah, this is another one of the genres that spaces in mystery that I haven't read as much as I have, I have watched. And so I thought maybe we could, you know, just talk about that. Do you share that same experience?

Speaker: Yeah, so when we started talking about spy thrillers, or we put that topic up there, I got sort of nervous because I thought, I don't think I know much about this. And then through the process, we learned, oh, well, it's in pop culture. And you especially said, wow, you went down the list and you

Speaker: Thought there's a lot of movies that kind of fit that category that are some of your favorite things to watch and I had the exact same experience with political thrillers when I realized this is so much of what probably a choice that my husband and I make together of something we watch because it's sort of got the action and intrigue that he really enjoys and it usually has a

Speaker: some of the conspiracy mystery elements that I enjoy. So yeah, I've watched a lot. I mean, one of our favorite shows was Scandal. We watched that whole entire series. You already mentioned 24 and Designated Survivor, House of Cards. That's been something that we've watched, probably not the entire thing, but a lot of those. And so I'm with you and I think that it's surprising because

Speaker: I also am somebody who doesn't really follow politics, and I feel like that's where my fear came from because I thought, oh gosh, I don't read political thrillers because I'm not into politics. But in fact, I really do enjoy those shows and feel like, oh, maybe I know more about the arcs of the stories and the components of the stories than I thought.

Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting. I only in the last year or so, and kind of independent of us doing this podcast, read a few books in this genre. So the two books that Bill Clinton wrote with James Patterson and the book that Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton wrote and

Speaker: I was surprised at how much I liked them. I think there's more of the action element in Bill Clinton and James Patterson's books than there is in the Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton one. But I really hope that the Louise Penny and Hillary write another book together because I really enjoyed that book.

Speaker: Yeah, to get ready for this episode, actually, when I looked through my film and TV preferences, I thought, why in the world am I not reading more of this? I think that it's something that I would really enjoy. And then so I did read The Ghost. You mentioned that one by Robert Harris.

Speaker: Uh, this week and just, it was really good, really a fantastic story. And then I am in the process of reading the Louise Penny, um, Hillary Clinton state of terror and enjoying it a lot too. Um, it's hard for Louise Penny to write any topic that I'm not going to.

Speaker: that I'm not gonna love because she's just such a great author. But yeah, I think that in the process of researching, I've discovered a group of books that I will spend more time with. So that's been really fun. You know, you mentioned that there's so many overlapping elements with

Speaker: with spy fiction. So I thought maybe we could talk about kind of that overlap between those two and even where like on the continuum where domestic thrillers fit in if we look at that as like a spectrum.

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's a spectrum or maybe a Venn diagram, right? If you think about the, you know, so in the circle would be suspense, right? As a common, I mean, I think for a book to fit in any of those categories, there needs to be an element of suspense, right?

Speaker: Um, and then it's, yeah, you know, who, um, who were the, uh, who are the players in the, in the story, right? And domestic it's, it's often, like we said last week, um, uh, a family or a tight knit group of friends. Whereas in the political thriller that cast as much tends to be much larger. Um, I, for this week, we started listening to the sum of all fears.

Speaker: So one of Tom Clancy's novels that I'm fairly certain I read it a long time ago. And there are so many characters. And it's hard to kind of keep track of, you know, who's who, right? And you kind of, the chapters, I think in all of these books tend to be short, right? So you just see a really short scene where someone is doing something that is

Speaker: questionable, right? And it's not until several chapters later that you realize what they were doing or why they were doing it, right? And so I think that is certainly common amongst all of them.

Speaker: But I find that more in the political thrillers than in the domestic or even in the spy fiction, that those chapters are really short and really, you might not see the same character again for some time until everything all falls together at the end.

Speaker: But yeah, I think there's a Venn diagram. So maybe if I have a few minutes, I'll try and draw it out so that we can include it in. I don't know if we can include an image in the show notes, but if I can, I'll try and piece it together.

Speaker: That would be, that would be fun. Yeah, I agree. I think it is sort of a Venn diagram because there are overlapping elements. Um, when I was reading, especially the, um, state of terror, you know, it opens up and the main character or one of the primary characters is a female secretary of state. And I was listed it, it, you know, as it, as this.

Speaker: a category of literature would, it launches you right into the action. And it goes off this litany of things that she's responsible for that day. To have a position with such high responsibility, it was just sort of overwhelming, but really fun to put yourself into the shoes of that woman because her day -to -day life was so much different than mine. And it was a good contrast in comparison to what we said about domestics.

Speaker: those appeal to you because it is so much like our everyday life, home, family, friends, work setting. It's a different kind of thrill that you get to peek into the world of this high responsibility, high stakes, fast pace. It reminded me of

Speaker: why people enjoyed maybe the Golden Age mysteries during that time, because it was an opportunity to peek inside the world of the aristocratic, luxurious manor house lifestyle and what's going on behind the scenes. And that's kind of what we're doing, like, okay, what's really talked about in the Oval Office or at the Pentagon, what do the conversations

Speaker: really sound like versus what we get to hear, um, as the public on the news. So it's fun. Yeah. You know, that's a really good point, Brooke, that yeah, you get, you get a peek behind a different curtain in the, in the political thrillers, right? Like, you know, my life is a, is a pretty standard working parent life. And it's, it is really interesting to think about, okay, well, what, what do those conversations sound like? And, and

Speaker: How quickly do they need to make decisions and that insight into that completely different world? And so sometimes it's really nice to read that. And then the next book that I might pick up might be a domestic thriller because I want to peek into a neighbor's life, right? Yeah. I think that's the beauty of books, right? Is that they expose you to all of these different scenarios that we may not be participating in ourselves.

Speaker: Yeah, we get to walk in the shoes of these different characters. One of the things that I find really satisfying about political thrillers, especially in the TV space, I think is that typically each episode has a little mini mystery that's happening within it. So oftentimes you get sort of the murder mystery puzzle story.

Speaker: built into the larger overarching story of what's happening with these, like you said, alliances and enemies and the overarching story. So I find that really fun in this brand of fiction too.

Speaker: Well, and that's actually a really key point, I think, is that in the shows that we mentioned, Scandal, 24, Designated Survivor, there is this overarching story arc from the first episode until the last, right? That is a big part of the narrative, but there is something that happens in each episode.

Speaker: that, you know, it pushes the story along, but also there's some little mystery or something that needs to be solved in each episode to keep that momentum, which is different than, say, Murder She Wrote, where each episode is its own discrete story. And there may be, you know, some character development over the course of the series,

Speaker: There's not this overarching grand mystery that she's trying to solve. She just has all of these people who are dying in Cabot Cove that she's solving each of those stories. Midsummer Murders would be another example of that.

Speaker: right, where each episode there's whatever murders the policeman are investigating and then the next it's a fresh set of suspects, a fresh crime. And there's not that continuity. Whereas you can't, and you could pick it up at any point, right? Like you could

Speaker: start watching Murder, She Wrote in season three, episode five, and you won't have missed anything, but you can't pick up 24 in season three, episode five, because you will have no idea what's going on.

Speaker: Yeah, you don't even want to miss one episode for those shows. And let's remember that when 24 was hot and we originally were watching it, you had to catch it on television. Remember those days, Sarah, where you couldn't just binge watch the whole show? Okay, we're dating. We're dating ourselves.

Speaker: But it yeah, you didn't want to even miss an episode because so much happens and it's exactly like you were talking about in the books like the chapters are really short and they're very fast -paced a ton of stuff happens in just a few pages and I would say that they mirror that in the film adaptations where

Speaker: A lot happens in each episode, and it's not just for the sake of action. It's moving the plot along. You're learning about the alliances. You're learning about who's potentially lying to who. Somebody, one world leader makes a huge decision that causes a domino effect for all the other nations, for instance. It's a fast -paced category.

Speaker: Yeah, and you have to be paying attention. I don't think shows or films in this genre are things that you can just have in the background and kind of drift in and out of, right? Like you've got to be sitting there on the couch watching the whole time. You can't go up and get up and fix yourself a snack because you will have missed some very key short scene that is critical to the plot. Exactly.

Speaker: So a couple of the lists that I looked at talked about Argo being a good example of this genre. And I saw it when it first came out. And thinking about it now, it wasn't so much about uncovering some conspiracy or deception as much as using covert operations to rescue diplomats.

Speaker: And it was the thrill was more that the audience was in on that secret. Right. And, you know, so we were we were really hoping that they wouldn't get caught. So we weren't it was a different perspective than a lot of these films and books. And so I thought that was interesting, but it is on a lot of the lists that I looked at of examples of of films in this in this genre.

Speaker: Yeah, you're right. And I think that's a good point to make is that there are different perspectives that you can take in this as the audience. You might not be seeing it from the world leaders perspective. I mean, 24 is an example of a lot of that story was told from the quote unquote enemies

Speaker: a viewpoint, it would take you into the terrorist cell and you'd be hearing their side of it and you would start to have some sympathy for them, right? You didn't want to necessarily see those characters lose or die because you started to feel some thing for them and I think that was credit for the way the story was told because you were getting their perspective as characters as well.

Speaker: Argo is also a good example that a lot of these political thrillers are set against the backdrop of historical events, assassinations of leaders, true life scandals, actual wars and conflicts.

Speaker: And it made me realize that one of the books that I hadn't really put into this category that I really enjoyed, but definitely fits, is Stephen King's 11 -22 -63.

Speaker: a King novel about the assassination of President Kennedy. And in King fashion, there's time travel and some fantastic sort of elements to it. But it's 100 % a political thriller because the main character is potentially changing the fate of

Speaker: world politics in the story and it's fantastic. So another thing to think about is the comments that this genre makes on real life events.

Speaker: Yeah, that's an excellent point, Brooke. So I haven't read that Stephen King book, but it sounds like it is something that I would enjoy. You're right. A lot of these stories are about real events. So, you know, several of the lists that I saw had the film JFK.

Speaker: I don't know if I would so much categorize that as a political thriller because it has different elements, right? But yeah, a lot of the books and a lot of the films either are inspired by actual events or you could very easily imagine

Speaker: these to -be events that happened, right? Or that could happen. I mean, maybe 24 is a bit out there, but a lot of it, you're like, oh, this is actually pretty plausible. I can imagine that this is the conversation that happens. And going back to the books that the Clintons co -wrote, those books, because they were written or had a lot of input from people who

Speaker: actually did have those conversations, made them even more believable, right? Yeah. And it's a lot of like the point that you made in the spy thrillers where we were talking about these authors who were MI6 guys or, you know, suspected to be FBI, uh, uh, covert.

Speaker: The fact that those authors did have that background enabled the narratives to be very believable and interesting. And I think that we see the same thing if a politician collaborates. And quite honestly, there's probably a lot of collaboration with people in the know for these shows, whether they're accredited or not.

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I did read the first part of a book that talks about that collaboration that occurs in a lot of these that, yeah, it's not credited, but it's there. And so, you know, I suspect that a lot of what we think we know about how government operates at that level has been influenced by some of that input. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker: It brings to mind a favorite show from a movie from years ago, which is, um, wag the dog and to not go down the conspiracy theorists, uh, rabbit hole. It's just, it's really interesting to think about and worth the watch and, um, you know, it'll get your, it'll get your wheels turning. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: I think it's also worth noting that we're talking a lot about the contemporary stories and definitely the popularity started after the 60s and 70s when that kind of distrust of politicians in the US reared its head. But these can be set in any time period.

Speaker: thoroughly enjoyed the series The Tudors, which I think at its core is a political thriller because it's all about the power struggle that was happening with King Henry VIII. And maybe we could say that it overlays the domestic thriller too because it was not only just about the leaders themselves, but what happens with marriages and divorces and in that time period,

Speaker: That was those alliances through marriage really mattered and so anyway, what do you think about that Sarah? I think that's a that's a really great great point So yeah, I I really enjoyed that series as well the tutors and I think you're right I think I think it is at its at its core a political thriller maybe a political domestic thriller like you say and

Speaker: Yeah, I love historical fiction, so I would love to read some historical political thrillers. I think I'm going to see if I can track any of those down because that's a really great point.

Speaker: Well, on that note, you recommended The Ghost by Robert Harris to me. And so then I found his writing to be really great. And I decided I'd look. And it looks to me, surface research here, Sarah, that he has some stories that are based on ancient Greece. So maybe we can do some historical political thriller reading through those. Oh, I'm going to definitely check that out.

Speaker: Well, thanks, Brooke. I think that was a really, um, a really great conversation. I will admit that at the beginning, I wasn't sure how long we'd be able to talk about, uh, political thrillers, but, um, there's a lot to say. And, you know, I think as with every episode, we've really just scratched the surface. Um, I think there's, you know, there's so much more, um, that we can, that we can read and, and talk about it, talk about. So, you know, in future, we may revisit some of this again.

Speaker: Yeah, that sounds great, Sarah. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can reach us at hello at cluedinmystery .com or on Instagram at CluedinMystery. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or a review or telling a friend to help spread the word. Thanks for joining us today on CluedinMystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.

Speaker: Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound .com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery .com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.