Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense—Distinctly Delicious (by Joslyn Chase)

If you’re a reader of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, it’s a dead certainty you enjoy reading mysteries. It may reasonably follow that you delight in thrillers and suspense fiction, as well. All three types of stories can present the reader with the kind of scintillating and satisfying experience found in no other genres.

But are there distinctions between the three—mystery, thriller, and suspense? Does it matter if there are?

If, like me, you are fascinated by what captivates us as lovers of the mysterious and suspenseful, please join me for a closer look into what sets these story types apart and what drives us to devour them with such pleasure.

Most merchants of mystery, AHMM included, define a mystery story as one that features a crime or the threat or fear of a crime. So, let us start with the crime as we examine the differences between our three chosen genres.

Naturally, there will be exceptions to the observations I’m making throughout this exploration, but most mysteries open with the crime—the grisly discovery of a corpse or an empty safe, bereft of jewels and bearer bonds. If the crime hasn’t occurred by page one, count on it to happen soon.

That’s because the remainder of the story revolves around discovering whodunit, why they did it, and how it was carried out. The answers to those questions are what keep us turning the pages, piecing the clues together, pitting our own gray matter against the sleuth at the wheel.

We want to solve puzzles and anticipate a resolution at the end, but our expectations go far beyond that. We also want to identify with the hero, experience the thrill of the hunt, and revel in the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator punished.

Thrillers also involve a crime. Usually, there is the threat of some horrific catastrophe looming ahead and the bulk of the story consists of spine-tingling, nerve-wracking attempts to stop that crime from happening.

If the action kicks off with a crime, that early crime is just a sample of what’s to come. If there’s not a crime at the start of the book, there must be the credible threat of a crime waiting in the wings. The story centers on the hero’s efforts to prevent such a calamitous crime from occurring.

Crime lurks beneath the surface of a suspense story, too. Tales of suspense are about danger, or the provocative threat of danger. The peril can be clear and present or a low-level hum but it must persist throughout the story as a pervasive element.

While a crime must take place in a mystery so that there’s something to solve, and the threat of a disastrous crime serves as the driving force of a thriller, it’s possible to have a complete and satisfying suspense story where the crime never occurs. The fear of it, the underlying menace, is enough to produce a full-fledged, emotionally fulfilling reading experience.

In all well-told stories, there must be something at stake. In a mystery, the risk may not rise to the level of life and death, at least not in the physical sense. The stakes may involve the detective’s reputation or relationship with a loved one. But there has to be something the protagonist yearns to gain or fears to lose.

In a thriller, the stakes are large, usually (but not always) expanding well beyond the personal realm. Life, liberty, and justice—these are the values on the chopping block of a thriller. We want to share the hero’s experience of riding the razor edge, nearly losing the desperate gamble, and then pulling back from the gaping jaws just as they snap shut!

We want to free the captives and defeat the enslavers, conquer the villain and see him get what’s coming to him. Give us anything less than life, liberty, and justice at stake in a thriller and we’ll walk away disappointed.

Beyond the intangibles at risk, we thrill over having something concrete in the mix—the formula for a dastardly bioweapon or a time machine programmed to bring Hitler into the twenty-first century. If you’ve ever heard anyone refer to the MacGuffin, this is what they were talking about.

It’s the back and forth of the game that keeps us enthralled and turning pages, keeping score and placing bets as we anticipate what will happen next and how it will all turn out.

While the scope of a suspense story doesn’t usually rival that of a thriller—entailing danger to a single person or small group rather than a widespread population—the measure of risk to the individuals involved should still be life and death, or something comparable.

The focus of the story differs as well across these three genres. In a mystery, the focus is on the crime and follows the protagonist in their pursuit of the perpetrator.

In a suspense story, that focus is flipped. The shadowy black hat is inexplicably in pursuit of the hero, who must peel back the layers to find out who wishes them ill, learn why, and figure out a way to stop it from happening.

In a mystery, the sleuth often labors to find a way into the puzzle. In a suspense, she’s trying to find a way out.

In a mystery, something has happened. In a suspense, something is about to happen and there’s a tantalizing tension as we try to fathom what, why, and who.

In a thriller, we often know what’s going to happen and even who’s responsible for the threat—although the protagonist may still be in the dark. The focus is on the fight, the chase, the race, the frantic battle to prevent the nightmarish disaster from occurring.

One of the most compelling characteristics of a thriller is its almost relentless fast pace, leaving us breathless as we speed through the pages. Suspense stories, on the other hand, can move ahead at just about any pace.

As an example, an all-time favorite of mine, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, is fraught with suspense and an underlying sense of peril. Yet it ambles at a leisurely pace through the dark halls of Manderley, taking its time in revealing, piece by piece, the secret that lies at the heart of the story.

Like suspense, the tempo of a mystery story can vary but won’t reach the breakneck level of a thriller and, in fact, usually contains more variation in pacing throughout.

This brings us to the ending of the tale, the finale, the happily ever after. Or not.

The ending of a mystery must provide a resolution. We expect it. Without it, we are not satisfied.

I remember reading Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend and being bitterly disappointed to reach the last page without knowing who committed the crime laid out at the book’s beginning. My fault, I suppose, for mistaking the story as a mystery when perhaps it’s not intended to be so.

There are occasions when the resolution may not exactly include the solution to the puzzle. But the story has to wrap up in a manner that will satisfy us, as readers, and justify the time we invested in reading it.

The ending of a suspense story is sometimes a bit more nebulous, in keeping with the distinctive and moody ambience they often engender. One hallmark of suspense fiction is the setting which tends toward brooding environments with a gothic sensibility—remote, macabre, mysterious.

Such stories may leave us deliberately in the dark at the close of the story. And yet, we might feel there could be no more fitting way to end the tale.

A thriller concludes after the final electrifying confrontation, the climactic scene pitting the rivaling forces against each other in a duel to the death—literally, in most cases. But there’s an important convention in a thriller that gives it that extra twist, the bite we crave in this particular type of story.

The false ending.

You know, when we think everything has been neatly wrapped up and we let our guard down. And then—wham!—out of nowhere, the unexpected happens, squeezing yet more suspense out of the story.

Think Casino Royale, Alien, or The Silence of the Lambs. These movies feature such a double ending. I’ll bet you can think of several more and they’re probably among your favorites.

When I was writing my first thriller novel, Nocturne in Ashes, it wasn’t until I reached the end of the book that I realized it was missing something—that false ending that leads to the final surprise twist. As I pondered how I might fix this deficiency, the solution jumped out at me with such force that I literally stopped in my tracks, stunned.

I, who had written the book, hadn’t seen it coming. And I knew readers wouldn’t see it either. When I hear from fans who’ve read the book, that twist is what they talk about most. It satisfied the convention, leading to satisfied readers.

So, I’ve made the argument that there are distinctions between mystery, thriller, and suspense and I’ve laid out my reasons. But how much does that matter?

To some, it matters a lot. To others, not so much. As for me—I love them all. Each one brings its own delicious flavor to the table. I hope our exploration has whetted your appetite and inspired you to dig into your next mystery, thriller, or suspense story with gusto!