Martin Ruben wrote a book based on a range critics opinions and ideas on a how a thriller should be, the book was entitled 'Thrillers'. Ruben begins with G K Chesterton, who felt he had to defend the genre. Chesterton though that the thriller was a modern genre and mainly has the setting of an urban landscape. When speaking of the genre, he claimed the purpose was to find ''the poetry of modern life''.
Northrop Frye built upon Chestertons' critique. Frye stated that the hero is usually an ordinary person, and strangely that a thriller is very similar to romance saying ''the hero of romance moves in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended''. He thought that a thriller is what turns an ''enchanted forest'' into a modern city.
Northrop Frye and G K Chestertons' ideas were combined by John Cawelti, claiming that a thriller ''transforms the city from a modern centre of commerce, industry and science into a place of enchantment and mystery'' and this was achieved by introducing ''The Exotic'' into the everyday, normal world.
W H Matthews based a lot of his work around fantasy and fiction, relating to mazes/labrynths. In Matthews opinion, he believes that for a thriller to be successful, there should be twists, turns, dead ends etc. It has to be a puzzling journey, one in which the audience doesn't solve too easily.
Pascal Bonitzer introduced the thought of 'partial vision' in relation to what Matthews had said previously, meaning that the audience should not understand everything that is going on throughout, to make it more interesting and build suspense.
Lars Ole Saurberg talked about two ways in which suspense can be added - concealment and protraction. He thought that the inevitable should be delayed, and that something should be deliberately hidden from the audience in order to make the thriller successful.
The final critic was by a man called Noel Carrol. Carrol said it was important to create questions as it keeps the audience in suspense, for example - ''Will the hero survive?''
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