Abstract
The thriller is concerned with threat to the security of individuals and the social order, and thus with the ability or non-ability to resist such threat. The genre can therefore serve as a site where concepts of the heroic, and especially the relationship between heroes, victims and perpetrators, are negotiated. For some recent examples of the genre, notably novels by Ken Follett and Val McDermid, Korte shows how this negotiation implies an engagement with the gendering of agency. While this gendering may confirm stereotypes, the more intriguing examples such as McDermid’s Cross and Burn use the disturbing elements of the thriller to unsettle orthodox assumptions about heroism and gender.
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Korte, B. (2017). Victims and Heroes Get All Mixed Up: Gender and Agency in the Thriller. In: Korte, B., Lethbridge, S. (eds) Heroes and Heroism in British Fiction Since 1800. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33557-5_11
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