The Worst Thriller Cliché?

(Night Manager 2 Spoiler Ahead)

I’m a crime fiction fan and author, and for over a decade I was the crime fiction reviewer for The Detroit Free Press. I combed through hundreds of books for my review columns and there was one cliché that really worked my last nerve. It also plays out in TV shows and limited series.

It’s the call from a confidential informant, a spouse, a cop, or a politician giving the investigator a simple hushed or desperate message: “I have something important to tell you and it has to be in person.” One variant among many is “I have something to show you.”

So what happens next? The investigator, instead of driving right over, makes a plan to see the caller the next day or later the same day. Not immediately, never immediately.

Of course that means the informant will be dead when the investigator shows up. It happens time and time and time again, as it did in Episode Two of the listless revival of The Night Manager. That’s when I bailed. I already had my doubts because the ensemble cast wasn’t half as interesting as the cast in the original, and the energy seemed very low. This “surprise” confirmed my doubts.

Readers: what mystery/thriller clichés bug you the most? Comment below.

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

Lev Raphael is the author of the acclaimed Nick Hoffman mystery series set in academia. The series is being reissued with new introduction by writers and forewords by the author. The latest book out is Assault With a Deadly Lie, a suspense novel about police overreaction in a quiet college town. While the books form a series, they do not have to be read in order of publication.