Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas, loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou’s known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers–the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between–as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he’s the kind of officer you’re happy to have … keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday.
But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge–and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that’s perfectly all right with him.
In The Killer Inside Me, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.
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This is a classic crime novel by one of the masters of the hard boiled genre. And one of the craziest narrators you will ever step into the head of.
Not even the excessively violent film version starring Casey Affleck could quite capture the laid-back cliche-spewing good old boy psychopath that is Lou Ford. You might think Jim Thompson had a degree is psychology with such deep insights into the mind of a man who has truly gone off the rails.
The homespun humor is darker than night and the …
Jim Thompson’s THE KILLER INSIDE ME is one of the most haunting and psychologically acute portraits ever put to paper of a serial killer hiding behind a lawman’s badge.
The Killer Inside Me, published in 1952, is considered his masterpiece. It’s about Lou Ford, whose father, a physician, explained to him that his personality fits the definition of psychopath. Lou freely indulges his sadistic tendencies and does whatever serves his own interests. Since he is the sheriff in his hometown, he remains above suspicion. …
A classic by Jim Thompson.
Wow! This book is ageless. Jim Thompson crafts one hell of a story but for me it’s the attention to dialogue that really sets it apart. He beautifully weaves what a reader needs to know and why with unique voices. It’s one of those books that demands repeat reading.
It’s hard to believe I’m old enough to use the words two decades ago and still be able to discuss my twenties. I can’t fathom where the time has gone. But I can say it has been down a rabbit hole of reading.
It’s true, perhaps, a decade and a half ago I began reading through the dozens of books Jim Thompson wrote. For a year I think the only …
A noir classic.
I’m relatively new to crime fiction and this was all kinds of great! Extremely dark and ominous, a trip through murder, with the killer as your guide. Not an easy read, pretty brutal. I know this is fiction, but people scare the hell out of me. The writing was excellent and I’ll read more of Jim Thompson. This was a fine, creepy book.