Crime Thriller: How to Write Detective, Noir, Caper & Heist, Gangster, & Police Procedural Thrillers

by Paul Tomlinson

Create Tough Guy Detectives and Femmes FatalesThe crime thriller first became popular in the 1930s and has been a best-selling genre ever since. Readers and viewers love stories about private investigators, police detectives, forensic pathologists, serial killers, gangsters, conmen and thieves.

To write a crime thriller you need to know the conventions of the genre – what elements people expect to find and what plot structure you should use. In this book you will find analyses and templates to write novels or screenplays

Private DetectivesGangsters and Gun MollsPolice Procedures & Forensic InvestigationSerial KillersUndercover CopsBurglars & ThievesConfidence TrickstersFilm Noir RomancePrisoners, Vigilantes & EnforcersIn these pages you will also learn the secrets of the buddy cop story and details about informants, interrogating suspects, surveillance & stake-outs, conducting missing person and murder investigations, and how to write a car chase.

Genres: Writing

440 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 5, 2019

About the author

Paul Tomlinson writes genre fiction and books about how to write genre fiction.

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the subgenres covered in this book are quite divorced from each other so while I have found the book generally informative not all of the sections have applied to me. For now, I have only read chapters of the book that are relevant, because I don't want to get all my subgenres muddled. However, these sections were high quality and went into enough detail that I had a general idea of how these procedures worked (for example, I liked the sections on spies/espionage, police informants and homicide scene investigations). I am a highly detailed orientated person so part of me wanted to deep dive even further on these topics, which was out of scope of the book. This book hasn't replaced my need for further research. Overall, this book covers a wide array of subgenres and while it has a place, I would have been perfectly content with a smaller book that harrowed down into one specific subgenre, rather than trying to cover all of them.

[Page Graves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abductions? Missing Persons?

This book is very good for reference for crime and thriller writers covering heists, car chases, and murders, but like other reference books covering police procedures, it’s missing a section regarding how police handle abductions of minors, abductions of adults, kidnappings, and the procedure to search for missing persons. I’ve read some information online covering these topics, which apparently varies state to state, but if there is a book geared towards writers that covers those specific topics, I’d like to find it.

[Taryn Moreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is insanely helpful for figuring out the conventions and plot variations in crime stories. If you're unsure where to go next in your novel or aren't as familiar with a specific genre and reader expectations, Crime Thriller will definitely help.

The author goes into some impressive depth on the history of the various subgenres, the reasons behind the genre conventions, and variations on plots. One of the most practically useful books on writing I've ever read.

[Colleen Eccles Penor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of great info

I found so much great information here for writing my crime thriller. I marked many passages for use in my current and future projects. I will return to this book again and again.

[Nikki Kincaid]

Very thorough, excellent reference. Highly recommended.