What is the American thriller? Has it developed over time? What was it like in the past? This is a book about thrillers and gaining knowledge of what American thrillers were like in a specific period - the 1970s. Analysing seventies texts about crime, police, detectives, corruption, paranoia and revenge, The American Thriller aims to open debates on genre in the light of audience theory, literary history and the place of popular fiction at the moment of its production.