Content Warning: This section briefly mentions racism, abuse, and violence.

Look Closer is an example of the thriller genre. Thrillers are novels that focus on emotions such as suspense, danger, and excitement. They usually employ cliffhangers, plot twists, and unreliable narrators to surprise and sometimes scare their audience. Crime thrillers often follow a detective or other character who tries to solve a crime and pursue justice. These novels are popular for their entertainment value and fast-paced storytelling. David Ellis, the author of Look Closer, is a practicing attorney and uses his knowledge of the legal system to craft thrillers that are factually accurate. His main character, Simon, is a law professor and specializes in government surveillance through technology, knowledge that comes in handy when he needs to frame Christian for a crime he orchestrated. In Look Closer, Ellis uses his knowledge of the legal system to craft a tightly woven plot with many twists and turns.

The forerunner to the thriller was the detective novel, and the Golden Age of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s codified many of the rules of the genre. Author S. S. Van Dine wrote down several of these rules in 1928, including the following: “The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery.