Extraordinary protagonists, average issues. Social problems in modern Finnish thrillers by Ilkka Remes and Taavi Soininvaara

Abstract

Thriller is considered to be a subgenre of criminal fiction, in which the most significant role is played by fast-paced action, suspense, spectacular events. In case of so called international and political thrillers it should also be mentioned that their authors construct their plots around the problems such as global conflicts, international conspiracy, terrorism, the development of nuclear weapon. However, problems commonly mentioned by many authors of other subgenres of criminal fiction, are also present in the novels classified as thrillers. The collapse of well-being society, unstable interpersonal relationships, mental problems of an individual, childhood traumas are therefore often mentioned by the writers, although they do not usually constitute main subjects of the novels. The article concentrates on some examples from international and political thrillers, in which such issues seem to be equally important, written by the most popular Finnish authors of this particular genre, namely Ilkka Remes and Taavi Soininvaara