This is from an article by a guy named Charles Waring. If you don’t know about Jim Thompson, here’s a primer. Life makes more sense after an afternoon with Jim. It’s all rated at least R for violence but probably closer to Unrated, due to the depravity/sadism. This is what they’re talking about when they say Pulp Fiction. Quick reads, no investment required.

The Killer Inside Me

Perhaps Thompson’s finest book. Stanley Kubrick called it “the most chilling and believable first person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” The main character, Lou Ford, a smalltown sheriff, suffers from “the sickness,” a psychopathic need to kill. Ford conceals his true identity under the guise of an inept, wise-cracking lawman: in truth he is one smart cookie (he reads psychological treatises and solves calculus problems for enjoyment). He is also a schizophrenic thug with a compulsive need to control, and if necessary, destroy, others. Thompson also invests Ford with a sickening, black humour: “I think I’ve broken the case,” says Ford, after he’s just secretly snapped the neck of one of his key witnesses held in custody! This disturbing, compelling masterpiece redefined noir.

The Getaway (1959)

What starts off as a simple bank heist yarn eventually mutates into an horrific nightmare when the book’s two major protagonists, Doc McCoy and his wife Carol, find sanctuary in the kingdom of the enigmatic dictator, El Ray. After escaping capture by enduring two days in underground caves and being holed up in a mound of farmyard dung, the McCoys find that the mysterious El Ray’s kingdom they flee to is no safe haven. In fact, it’s hell on earth, where fugitives have to pay for their liberty with added financial and psychological interest. It’s a place where one’s worst imagined fears become incarnate. The effect of Thompson’s grim metaphysical musings at the book’s conclusion still divides the critics (both film versions dispensed with the book’s original, arguably unfilmable, ending). A disturbing masterpiece.

The Grifters (1963)

The classic tale in which Jim Thompson gives the lowdown (with the help of sadistic mobster, Bobo Justus) on how to serve oranges to a person you don’t like! Roy Dillon, the son of Lillie, a racetrack collector for the mob, is master of the “short con.” He has a romantic entanglement with another expert grifter, Moira Langtry, who sells sexual favours to her landlord in return for the rent money. Together, the three characters get caught up in an incestuous, double-crossing menage-a-trois culminating in betrayal, infamy and murder. Another Thompson masterpiece.

Pop.1280 (1964)

Lawman Nick Corey is fat, lazy, foul-mouthed and an irritating practical joker. His memorable, moronic catchphrase is “I wouldn’t say you was wrong, but I sure wouldn’t say you was right, neither.” But like Lou Ford before him, Corey is a sharp-witted malevolent killing-machine masquerading as a witless, innocuous clown. Set at the turn of the last century in a backwater town, Pop.1280 begins as a raucous, almost farcical comedy but descends into an apocalyptic bloodbath. A dark, disturbing novel that ranks alongside Thompson’s best work.

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