"The Criminal" by Jim Thompson. Published by Lion Books in 1953. Softcover first edition. Front and rear cover color art work. Minor edge wear, otherwise, excellent. Measures 6.25" x 4.25." Scarce copy.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of his best for sure,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Criminal (Paperback)
This is a short one but God, it's a masterpiece. Your sympathy and your hate jumps from character to character as the story goes. I find it one of Thompsons more sensitive books in contrast to some of his more hate-filled work. There are some pretty evil persons in this one too though, and you start to question who's to blame for the tragedy in the novel. You don't have to be a crimelover to read and get drawn into this Thompson story.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A gem,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Criminal (Paperback)
I'm a big Jim Thompson fan, and I think this is his very best. A crime occurs, but guilt or innocence quickly loses focus - the suspect becomes a pawn, and each chapter focuses on a different figure (the D.A., the newspaper editor, the suspect's family, etc.) and how they deal with the situation. Each chapter is written in the first person, and has a number of vignettes that, to me, were truly vivid. Thompson's more 'extreme' novels, like The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, or Pop. 1280, are better-known, but I think the quiet power of this book eclipses them all.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thompson at his best,
By
This review is from: The Criminal (Paperback)
What a refreshing book, particularly the use of different narrators & the (successful) heavy reliance on dialog to propel the story. I was very concerned Thompson's books would all be alike after I read & loved "The Killer Inside Me" ... & they're not at all ... this is a completely different style from that or from, say, "South of Heaven" or "Now And On Earth." I've read one other book that used this approach, John Burnham Schwartz's much more recent & also excellent "Reservation Road" & it works very well for both writers. Thompson is wonderfully controlled with it, keeping things short & tight. I love how many people assume young Bob Talbert is innocent & railroaded ... in fact, Thompson leaves the question of his innocence or guilt entirely with the reader & it's beautifully ambiguous, especially if the reader is familiar with the sociopathic personality which, without ever saying it, Thompson gives Talbert plenty of room to be. Thompson was ahead of his time understanding criminals & perhaps much of it was intuitive, from what he knew about himself. Whatever his personal weaknesses he was very brave in showing people's inherent capacity for evil, without apologizing for it. It's in Thompson's ability to see the universal capacity for evil that his humanity lies.
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