Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me

[dem bones]

Jim Thompson - Four Novels (Zomba, 1983)

Blurb:
Black Box Thrillers: Value for money classic crime fiction. Four titles in one volume, each a forgotten masterpiece by leading thriller writers of yesteryear.

"...Dashiell Hammett, Horace McCoy, and Raymond Chandler. None of these men ever wrote a book within miles of Thompson's." - R V Cassill, Book Week

"Jim Thompson is the best suspense writer going, bar none." - New York Times

THE GETAWAY
filmed by Sam Peckinpah with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw.
The bank robbery was child's play. The escape was not, as they grappled with ghosts from the past, murderous accomplices and the police.
Their destination was Hell.
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
filmed by Burt Kennedy with Stacy Keach and Susan Tyrell.
For him, murder was a way of life. He saw nothing wrong about it. The problem was being a Sherrif, people didn't expect that of you.
THE GRIFTERS
They were small-time crooks trying to break into the big time. But love, fate and family ties kept them down. They were desperate for a way out.
POP. 1280
filmed as Clean Slate by Bertrand Tavernier with Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert
Corruption surrounded him from all parts. He decided to take matters into his own hands, with horrendous consequences.

WARNING. WARNING
Hitch-hikers may be escaped LUNATICS

Amazing that we've not had a Jim Thompson thread 'til now, so taking advantage of the 'controversy' surrounding the recently released adaptation of The Killer Inside Me, let's get started. i got into him via Nick Cave who, post-Birthday Party, was often photographed clutching a lovely battered copy of Killer .... It's been some time since i read it, but the novel is told from the point of view of the murderer, Lou Ford, a troubled 29 year old who has somehow become deputy sheriff to a small Texan community. Although going steady at the story's outset, Lou's predilection for sexual violence finds an outlet in local hooker Joyce Lakeland. It transpires that Lou raped a girl in his teens, a crime for which his late brother Mike did time. After his release, Mike was killed while working on a building site and Lou believes he was murdered. How to get even? Well, they're going to blackmail the construction magnate. Or, at least, that's what Joyce thinks they're going to do ....

That is a particularly lousy plot outline even by my godawful standards, but trust me, if you've not read Thompson you're in for a nasty treat. Much is made of the violence, (in his introduction to this Black Box edition, Nick Kimberley notes that "the most troubling aspect of this fiction is its sadism, sometimes so powerfully evoked that its hard to escape the conclusion that Thompson is enjoying it") though having come this far i guess you're all used to that by now.

"All of us started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much and got so little, that meant so good and did so bad."

[stuyoung]

The Killer Inside Me was the first Thompson novel I ever read. My uncle is into all that old pulp crime stuff and he lent it to me. I think I may have asked to borrow some Thompson stuff due to Joe R Lansdale being compared to him in a blurb I saw somewhere.

Quite keen to see the film although as you say it's stirred up some controversy. The critics have been shocked, absolutely flabbergasted. They're just not used to seeing Jessica Alba in decent films.

[dem bones]

It's bizarre, ain't it, or most likely, just a pile of hype as per. The title's a kind of tip-off that it isn't likely to be a rom com and i find it hard to believe that not one critic at Sundance had some prior acquaintance with Thompson's work. he's not exactly obscure.

POP. 1280 - at least, it is when the story begins - is almost Son Of The Killer Inside Me if i remember, with yet another psycho lawman on the loose. i really must reread 'em. Couple more:

Jim Thompson - Recoil (Corgi, 1988: originally Lion, 1953)

Blurb
`My favourite crime novelist - often imitated but never duplicated – is Jim Thompson' - Stephen King

After fifteen years in the State Pen for armed robbery and kidnapping, Patrick M Cosgrove needs a job to get parole: but only one man is willing to give him one, the sinister Doctor Roland Luther. Soon Lila, Luther's beautiful ash-blonde wife makes it clear that she comes as part of the package as well. Things couldn't look better for him, apart for one thing. If the jealous Doc finds out that he has laid one finger on Lila, Cosgrove could end up back at the Pen. Or in the morgue...


Jim Thompson - Savage Night (Corgi, 1988: originally Lion, 1953)

Blurb
`My favourite crime novelist - often imitated but never duplicated – is Jim Thompson' - Stephen King

Carl Bigelow's mission in Peardale, Long Island, is simple: to kill Jake Winroy, a one-time hoodlum who is about to turn state's evidence against the Boss. But Winroy's death mustn't look like a contract killing, otherwise the corrupt politicians who run the territory would have to stage a clean-up, and that would be bad for the Boss's business. Luckily Winroy has a weak spot: Mrs Winroy. Beautiful and bored with her drunken husband, she would do anything to ditch him and take up with a richer, younger man such as Baby Faced Bigelow. But first she has to put Jake out of the picture, permanently.

[stuyoung]

That cover looks way too nice and polite for a book called Savage Night. I read that one as past of the Jim Thompson Volume 2 from Picador. It's been a while but I seem to recall that it goes totally mental at the end. Ramsey Campbell was discussing it on a Crime and Horror panel at FantasyCon a few years back and he said the only way the ending makes sense is if you treat it as being supernatural events.

[andydecker]

Jun 4, 2010 17:46:45 GMT dem bones said:

It's bizarre, ain't it, or most likely, just a pile of hype as per. The title's a kind of tip-off that it isn't likely to be a rom com and i find it hard to believe that not one critic at Sundance had some prior acquaintance with Thompson's work. he's not exactly obscure.

I agree. I have just scimmed the headlines of this particular debate, but this seems to be one of those the PC-Police things. A highly visible cast doing non-cartoonish violence. I guess most of these people just don´t know what they are talking about. They should watch movies like The Stendhal Syndrome and countless others to put things in perspective.

Read the novel a long time ago. Back then I didn´t thought it that great. The story of his working life was much more interesting. Another of those guys who got famous only after death and put on a pedestal by the critics.

That is not to say his stories are not worthwhile. And they made some good movies based on his work, even some obscure. Movies like This World, then the Fireworks may have been flops commercially, but I love this film.

[benedictjjones]

strangely enough i have read two 'thompson's' in the last week:

'the killer inside me' - though the lou ford character was brilliant and found myself rooting for him throughout.

'the getaway' - very different from the film version and much, much darker. couldn't make myself root for doc in the same way i did for lou - and for me lou is more in the same group as rudy, as in they have no choice in what they do whereas doc has chosen what he is.

[benedictjjones]

"POP. 1280 - at least, it is when the story begins - is almost Son Of The Killer Inside Me if i remember, with yet another psycho lawman on the loose. i really must reread 'em."

recently read 'Pop. 1280' and couldn't agree more - i thought 'the killer inside me' was a better book though.

[benedictjjones]

got the new film version of the li;;er inside me and am looking forward to giving it a watch this week.

[stuyoung]

I might pick up the DVD. Been meaning to get back into Thompson's books for a while now and that might be the kick up the backside I need.

[benedictjjones]

i enjoyed the film, very close stylistically to the book and i could spot the bit where the critics (and jessica albe) walked out at the premier...

[stuyoung]

Finally got round to watching the film. I'm still processing the experience. The cast mumbled most of their dialogue which made it difficult to concentrate as I was tired, had a headache and couldn't hear anything over the rain hammering down on my roof.

[stuyoung]

Just read Jim Thompson's POP. 1280. I read a couple of Thompson novels a few years back but I don't remember them being this funny.