If Something Happens to Me

The thriller genre is characterized by suspense, plot twists and action-driven narratives. This novel’s title—If Something Happens to Me—immediately establishes that it will include elements of suspense and action, since it prompts readers to ask what might happen, to whom, and what the consequences will be.

The thriller genre borrows from a long tradition. It traces its roots back to Gothic novels that blended elements of horror, mystery, and the supernatural, such as Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859). Detective fiction, which is characterized by a mystery at the heart of its plot, emerged as a subgenre within the thriller in the late 19th century. Edgar Allen Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) established the character of a detective who solves the mystery through logical reasoning, and this tradition was solidified by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, beginning with A Study in Scarlet (1887). The thriller genre takes its action from swashbuckling sagas like Alexander Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo (1844). Additionally, its use of cliffhangers at the end of chapters was popular in serialized novels of the 19th century; they were published in periodicals one chapter at a time and depended on suspense to keep readers coming back.