Fiction In A Recession

Over on the Curzon Group blog, I've been writing about how fiction changes in a recession.

There's some discussion out there about recession fiction, According to this piece in The Independent, publishers are demanding changes from their chick-lit authors to fit more straighten times. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail chips in with a peice about 'recession-lit'

Out go the sex-and-shopping bonkbusters, it seems. In come frugal tales of coping with the recession.

I wonder if the same trend applies to thrillers. Less obviously, in the sense that popular women's fiction is very materialistic. Thrillers don't have so much shopping in them anyway.

But in another sense, all popular fiction has to capture the mood. I suspect people are going to want more escapism, and more heroes who have fallen on hard times and want to make some quick money. I try to touch on some of those themes in my mercenary stories.

But I suspect it is a rich vein for thriller writers to mine. More financial thrillers, perhaps? More heist thrillers? And more mega-rich villains.