The literary spy thriller can legitimately explore morality and identity

Evidence

The novels featured in this chapter test the boundaries of the thriller form. They have ambitions to move beyond the pot-boiler type with its frantic action and instead delve deeper into characterization and human psychology, considering how the latter are affected by an unforgiving political context. In the case of John Le Carré, the superior thriller is his stock in trade. Along with his predecessor Graham Greene, Le Carré is often credited with giving a literary legitimacy to the spy thriller by making it a vehicle for the exploration of questions of morality, motivation, and identity. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 322

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the ‘superior thriller’ as a category that exceeds the pot-boiler through psychological depth — a vocabulary term useful for placing Hamid and Naqvi.
• XREF: Speaks to the hinge between ‘low’ genre fiction and ‘high’ literature that morey uses — relevant to deciding whether Hamid and Naqvi operate in the thriller register. — connects to: Spy fiction reveals the constructed nature of wartime sides — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 337; The thriller’s inherent clash of ideologies enables dialogic critique rather than automatic conservatism — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 315; Thrillers inviting identification with injustice can avoid engaging culturally different subjects — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 378 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Spy fiction reveals the constructed nature of wartime sides — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 337; The thriller’s inherent clash of ideologies enables dialogic critique rather than automatic conservatism — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 315; Thrillers inviting identification with injustice can avoid engaging culturally different subjects — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 378 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Moral unmasking that fails to shock bolsters the very values it attacks #complicates (0.74)