Humor [by suspense/thriller authors]

That question is so vague.

Virtually everything you read will have a touch of humour in it -somewhere.

David Baldacci's Camel Club series

Dean Koontz uses humor in my favorite books. Dark Rivers of the Heart has one of the best combinations of funny and suspenseful, IMO. There's one scene in the middle that cracks me up every time I read it. He also has a couple of other books that are more like light suspense (Life Expectancy, for example) that have more funny.

It's also the style I tend to write, but I'm not published yet so that doesn't really help.

Oh! This isn't quite suspense/thriller, but Jim Butcher's Dresden Files are hilarious. And those get pretty dark and gritty, too. He's great at balancing it out.

I'm a big fan of John Sandford's novels--there's lots of types of humor in there, including cops play-insulting each other, quirky characters, absurd situations, and cops telling each other outright jokes.

For more than a "touch" of humor in mystery/suspense, look at Donald Westlake's work or Carl Hiassen's or the two surprisingly good novels of Dave Barry. In fact, this subgenre is my favorite, and if more people wrote like those three guys, I'd be floating on a cloud of readerly satisfaction.

Janet Evanovich - the Stephanie Plum series (ex: One For The Money)
Lawrence Block - the Bernie Rhodenbarr series (ex: Burglars Can't Be Choosers)
Annelise Ryan {AW:cwfgal} - the Mattie Winston series (ex: Working Stiff )


-cb

Christopher Moore didn't exactly do thrillers, but in his other books he does a lot of humor, including Practical Demonkeeping....too much, imho.

King has a deft touch with humor, Koontz used it a fair bit in The Bad Place and Brother Odd, off the top of my head.

Carl Hiasson, definitely. I've read one or two of his and they're entertaining.

Umgowa said:

Thanks for the feedback. When I say the names Gregory Macdonald . . .(yes it's spelled that way . . . The author of Fletch) or Carl Hiaasen. . . . Do they resonate with anyone??

Click to expand...

Both do. Of course, I'm in Hiaasen territory. Not sure either are suspense or thriller writers. But if you're including Hiaasen, toss in Tim Dorsey, Randy Wayne White and Laurence Shames. Maybe Stuart Woods.

But heck, everyone from James Patterson to Elmore Leonard has humor in their novels. Maybe not as a recurring theme as in Hiaasen or Dorsey, or even the Stephanie Plum series (Always on pre-order in my family -- The movie sucked!), but they have the right amount of humor to keep the books a good read.

As for Hiaasen or Dorsey, if you find the characters extremely odd, you should live here. There's an old line that says "All the nuts roll downhill to Florida."

Jeff

Christopher Brookmyre in Scotland
Shane Maloney in Australia

and James Crumley, natch

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."

Just read Eric Garcia's Anonymous Rex. It's about a velociraptor PI and dinosaurs who live disguised as humans among the general population. Didn't think someone could pull that off, but he managed it very well. Best line of the book... "Ankylosaurs are the used-car salesmen of the dinosaur world."

Donald Westlake.

Definitely like Carl Hiaasen novels, and think he has a great flair for comedy. His books are very light fair, make for a great beach read and mindless entertainment while keeping you guessing whodunnit?

Elmore Leonard is the master of crime novels and most of the dozen I've read of his are very humorous and more in-depth, more believable than most other crime novels written "funny". His novel "Get Shorty" and its sequel "Be Cool" are two good examples of very satisfying crime novels that make you chuckle every few pages.

Lee Goldberg can also write a funny mystery--though not all of his mysteries are funny. "Watch me Die" was especially funny and very endearing with some very specific laugh-out-loud moments. Joseph Wambagh injects a lot of funny into his cop novels, though his writing skills aren't that of Leonard. Then again, whose are?

It can be done, combining mystery and humor, as long as you don't come across as trying too hard like way too many (popular) writers attempt. If it comes out organically from the character of your Characters then it works. It's usually not as intense a story as a full-on "serious" mystery, but the crazy characters, spot-on dialogue, and curious dilemmas they end up in make up for it.

Hope this helps. Good luck with your writing.

Stephanie Bond and Lisa Lutz have more than a touch of humor. Lutz is a little light on the suspense aspect though.

I just read The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez, which is a hard-boiled, comedic, science fiction mystery novel with a robot detective narrator. It's pretty good--which considering how many genres he was juggling, makes it more impressive.

I read that one earlier this year. It's good fun.