Attended a webinar recently on penning thrillers and murder mysteries. I caught about half of the sessions live, and still have a couple to catch up on as downloads. Overall, the ones I’ve listened to so far were excellent, with one exception. I won’t say the author’s name, let’s just refer to him with the neutral title of Obnoxious Egotistical Bore.
Anyway, one of the authors spoke with great facility about the psychological themes in thrillers, covering everything from the classic good versus evil to the pathos of the poor schlub crushed beneath the weight of societal constraints. Under classic good and evil, he referred to Jack Reacher, noting that instead of David and Goliath, Childs hit on an original theme of Goliath vs. Goliath. I thought the analogy good, but question the “originality.”
There was a show that I loved in the 80s called “The Equalizer.” It starred Edward Woodward, an excellent English actor that you might remember from Breaker Morant. Woodward played an ex-secret agent who now used his considerable skills and resources to help those little guys who respond to his personal add offering services by The Equalizer. Seems to me, that was Goliath vs. Goliath.
Dirty Harry Callahan is probably the classic GvsG, when necessary eschewing the rules to save John Q. from the criminals running amok during the post-Miranda overreach of the 70s and early 80s. Ditto Paul Kersey from Death Wish. Hell, ditto Batman and Spiderman. Ditto James Bond.
Rather than saying Reacher (and all the clones that arose in his wake) was original, I would say Childs tapped into an old, almost mythic theme that had grown unfamiliar in the move toward conflicted protagonists that agonized over the moral implications of every action. Rather than fretting over mala prohibita (check out G. Gordon Liddy for a definition), Reacher, Bond, Kersey, Dirty Harry, and The Equalizer worried about what was right, which is why we keep coming back for more.