Terry Prone: I will never again buy a book with 'wind', 'snow' or 'ice' in the title

Modern thrillers and police procedurals are filled with self-absorbed losers. And that’s just the heroes.

Pat Marry’s 'The Making of a Detective' is an account of a real-life detective within An Garda Síochána solving (and sometimes failing to solve) murders and rapes. Picture: Ciara Wilkinson

Mon, 10 Aug, 2020 - 07:50

Terry Prone is an author, columnist and one of Ireland's most well known commentators on communications, politics and public life.

If you read thrillers and you’ve been reading a large number of them in lockdown, the odds are high that you may be a tad depressed. This is because modern thrillers and police procedurals are filled with self-absorbed losers. And that’s just the heroes.

Doesn’t matter if the location is Dublin or Glasgow or Boston, you’re guaranteed that the central figure investigating the crime is in a bad place in their own life. Either they’re fresh out of a 28-day treatment for drugs or alcohol or they’re newly divorced and living in an apartment that manages to be simultaneously sparse and squalid.