Comic Relief

[Victoria Dougherty]

Hi, Thriller Lovers.

 

I have a bit of a philosophical question for you.

Do you think comedy has a place in an otherwise hard-bitten thriller?  Not necessarily laugh out loud punch line comedy - more like the sort of comic elements that surface in real life.  For instance, Nicolai Ceausescu, the late Romanian dictator, was cruel and unfeeling towards his own people and had no problem letting them starve, but was fanatical about his lap dogs, insisting upon a luxury limo for their exclusive use. 

Thanks,

Victoria

[Lawrence Lundigan]

Absolutely - Examples: Ross Thomas, Len Deighton, Evan Hunter, and Max Allen Collins. and the drunken doorman in the Scottish Play. 

[Sammy Evans]

You know Victoria humour is something you come across in all walks of life... and is often piqued by tension, dark morbid, life and death situations etc. If you work in the NHS, or are in the thick of it with the emergency services then humour can be sparked in the most unlikely situations. Whatever the genre, there is always room for humour... as long as its not forced but comes out of dramtic tension or character trait. That's my 'reader's' view anyway...

[Jen Hilborne]

Humor can have a place in hard-boiled thrillers, although I don't miss it if it's absent. The humor, in my opinion, should be dark, otherwise it ruins the dark mood of the thriller for me.