If history came to an end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the recent rebirth of the political thriller is yet another indication that history has resumed its course. Such thrillers thrive on the melodrama of global political struggle, especially the subterranean world of espionage, assassination, and dirty tricks. The twentieth-century thriller reached its peak in the treacherous setting of a divided Berlin, that nest of conspiracy and big-power rivalry. The early work of John le Carré, especially The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, and its spare film version by Martin Ritt, gave local color to the vicious logic of the cold war, turning it into a chess game of operational tactics and down-at-heels characters, reversals and betrayals. Most thrillers are no more than machines designed to build up excitement through spectacular action, chilling suspense, and the head-on collision of unlikely heroes and vicious scoundrels. They show how evil lurks at the edge of everyday life ...

» Want to continue? Login below:

top  |  print  |  email