5 Old-School Thrillers That Would be Hits Today

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré
The very definition of the term “slow burn,” le Carré’s brilliant 1974 novel ratchets up tension so deliberately and subtly it’s almost supernatural. The story of a hunt for a Soviet spy deeply embedded in a position of influence in the British secret service and the retired spy, George Smiley, charged with identifying him, this is not a spy thriller composed of fisticuffs and gun fights, but rather meticulous spycraft and the quietly fascinating work of piecing together a puzzle. Smiley works solely with clues gleaned from the endless reams of information collected, collated, and filed by the service itself. As Smiley slowly closes in on the mole, the picture his efforts produce is both satisfying and alarming. This book is so good it continues to be adapted every few years, with a film version making a splash as recently as 2011.

The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth
The Cold War politics of this classic thriller are long gone, but Forsyth’s novel (which won the 1972 Edgar Award for Best Novel) still carries the punch of a meticulously researched story set in a very real world. It’s a novel of agonizing anticipation: first, as we follow the slow, careful preparations and planning of the titular Jackal, hired to assassinate the President of France; then as we follow along with the equally painstaking detective work of the man charged with identifying the Jackal as time runs out. The twin stories of detective and assassin remain separate right up until the moment the Jackal takes his shot, and it’s this element of cat-and-mouse between a devious killer and a brilliant agent—plus the elevated stakes of global politics—that make this a book that stills resonate today.

Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith
Perhaps one of the most brilliant setups in thriller history, you can find elements of Strangers on a Train in plenty of modern books—but there’s only one original. An unhappy man wants to be rid of his wife, an unbalanced heir wants to be rid of his father. When they meet and exchange their stories, they agree to “trade” murders, committing crimes they have no motive for. That’s brilliant enough, and remains brilliant no matter how many years go by. Highsmith ups the ante when the husband fails to take the conversation seriously—and then fails to go to the authorities when his wife is killed and his friend from the train starts to press him to keep his side of the bargain. The pressure mounts as Highsmith pursues one of her favorite themes: people becoming linked irrevocably to others they neither control nor understand. The reader is left wondering at the power of idle chat with the wrong person, an element of paranoid chaos that is just as powerful today as it was decades ago.

The Getaway, by Jim Thompson
So many crime thrillers focus on the crime itself: the planning, the personnel, the execution. Thompson instead focuses on the aftermath: the tense, boiling flight by bank robber Doc McCoy, his wife, Carol, who slept with another man to gain Doc’s freedom, and Doc’s one-time partner Rudy, who attempted a double cross during the robbery and was left for dead by the McCoys. As in most Thompson novels, there are no good people here, and plenty of dark, excruciatingly tense sequences as desperate people maneuver to survive. One of the reasons this book remains much-discussed is the unusual ending, in which (spoiler alert) the McCoys buy their way into a mythical Mexican resort for criminal fugitives, where they live very well—as long as they can afford the rent—and where it’s implied most couples wind up killing each other to make the money last. Bleak and nonstop, this book would likely be a sensation today, though it was criminally overlooked when originally published.

The Night of the Hunter, by Davis Grubb
The Night of the Hunter has so many layers it can read over and over again. The story itself is tense, dark stuff: a con-artist-slash-preacher-slash-serial killer suspects his dead former cellmate hid the fruits of a bank robbery in his own house, so when the preacher gets out of prison he looks up his cellmate’s wife and ingratiates himself, eventually murders her, and terrorizes the children—all while being loved and respected by the community at large. Look a bit deeper, and your pulse pounds more: there’s a clear theme of child abuse and violence against children and how society refuses to see it or do anything about it when the perpetrator is a well-liked pillar of the community. Whether you want to see this subtext or not, this novel still blows the doors off when people read it for the first time.