No Exit

Taylor Adams’s No Exit is a thriller, a broad-scope narrative category that encompasses many subgenres, which often themselves contain many further subcategories. The thriller genre includes crime fiction, horror, and mystery or detective fiction, though not all texts in these categories are necessarily thrillers. Thriller author James Patterson writes:

Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military-thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre’s most enduring characteristics (Thriller, edited by James Patterson, MIRA Books, 2006, p. iii.).

Given its many iterations, the thriller genre is defined most broadly and clearly by the emotions it elicits. Thrillers hinge on suspense and invite their readers to find pleasure in emotions that are commonly considered “negative,” such as anxiety, apprehension, or tension. Thrillers often build in intensity, increasing in pacing and intensity as the climax of the novel is reached, which frequently includes an arrest, death, or other form of distinctly “final” action, often providing closure and relief from the story’s