As mentioned, stylistically Brown's fiction has impressive forebears, but Standoff is a sub-genre of the mainstream thriller in that it has a closed setting and presents a miniature society. In this case it includes star-crossed lovers, their antagonists, their helpers, and some innocent bystanders, all of which are at once individual characters and representatives of types. Several literary precedents spring to mind, foremost among them Ship of Fools (1945), Katherine Anne Porter's masterpiece. The Poseidon Adventure (1969) by Paul Gallico and Airport (1968) by Arthur Hailey also generally fit this mold, in the sense that the characters are stuck within closed settings, are facing stressful situations, and seem to symbolize society as a whole. Of course, there are many other novels written in this vein, but most of them fail to approach the success and artistry of the ones mentioned here.

Unlike Standoff, most of which happens during one...