Wrong Angle, Kemosabe

There’s an old joke where Tonto looks at the Lone Ranger, then at the rear end of a horse, and simply says: “Kemosabe.”

That’s about as concise a definition of trust issues as you’ll ever find.

Thrillers thrive on this kind of mistrust. The best ones put their heroes in situations where survival depends on someone else—and that someone else might be a traitor. The “we” in thrillers is almost always provisional.

Think about it: Bourne and Marie in The Bourne Identity. Every time he helps her, she wonders if she’s helping a protector or a lunatic. In le Carré, spies treat every ally like a possible mole. That sideways glance is where the real suspense lives.

In my next book, JR Johnson isn’t just worried about one partner—he’s torn between two. He needs both of them, but he can’t decide which is more dangerous: the one who might be setting him up, or the one who might decide it's easier to just kill him. It’s like sharing a lifeboat with two people and wondering which one is secretly drilling holes in the bottom.

So when JR hears “we,” he doesn’t relax—he tightens up. Because in the thriller world, “we” usually comes with an unspoken asterisk.
​
Sometimes the only smart response is Tonto’s: take a hard look at the view in front of you, then mutter, “Kemosabe.”