Customer Reviews

The Killer Inside Me

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Jim Thomson, in my case, seemed to come out of nowhere. I don't know for what reason and I don't know why now .. but I also don't think I want to know. In hindsight, I'd like to think it was fate.

I remember sitting down in one of the bookstore's aisles, (mystery I suppose), trying to make the decision between purchasing Norman Mailer's most recent "opus" and Tom Wolfe's latest "era-defining novel," when something caught my eye. It was a flash of color, a bright shade of orange, which actually turned out to be the spine of a book. It was then that I read the title: "The Killer Inside Me." The title intrigued me even more and in a matter of seconds I placed both of the novels I had been holding on the shelf and took this short 'surprise' with me to the cashier.

Two days later, I had finished one of the most enjoyable, thought-provoking 'genre-books' I had ever read.

The story is told in the first-person narrative which heavily influences the suspense of the story. The main character is Lou Ford, a deputy sheriff in a small, middle-of-nowhere Texas town of Central City. The thing with Lou is that he is a sociopath...and more importantly, he knows he is a sociopath. To hide this "sickness", as he puts it, that he's carried with him since childhood, he makes himself appear bland, dim-witted, and his conversations are drowned in cliches. However, this sickness that Lou has tried so desperately to hide is about to resurface again, and the aftermath of this explosion inside him isn't very pretty.

The course of the novel is one that would better serve the reader if left unsaid by a reviewer such as myself, so I feel this is all I will reveal of the book's content.

I will leave you with this. There is a part within the novel where a character states, "A weed is just a plant out of place," and then adds, "If I placed a hollyhock in a cornfield, it would be considered a weed. But if I put it in my front yard, it's a flower. You get what I'm sayin'?"...and this affected me. How something so hackneyed and simple could strike a reader such as myself remains a mystery. But it did. The same goes for the story. Jim Thomson is an excellent writer and my sole regret is not finding out about his work until now.

True talent.

Jim Thompson may well have been one of the most filmic writers ever to work. His books have inspired quite a number of films including Grifters, The Getaway, The Getaway (yes, I said it twice. It's been filmed twice. Once wonderfully with Steve McQueen and Allie McGraw, once terribly with Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger), Coup de Torchon, After Dark, My Sweet and to some extent From Dusk Till Dawn. He also wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory.

Thompson worked in a well worn genre. He walked the same fields as James M. Cain, Dashiel Hammet, and more recently, Elmore Leonard. Thompson wrote real tough guy fiction. In the pages of his books bad men do bad things, and are often undone by bad women (or sometimes unlucky women).

To clarify, Thompson wrote Noir. These are bedtime stories for the criminally insane. Thompson's work will appeal to people who enjoy Chinatown, The Big Sleep, American Psycho, and gritty stories that take place in dark alleys, and rain swept streets. His novels are best read by lamplight, with a glass of Jack Daniels close at hand.

The Killer Inside Me is no exception to this rule. It is the story of Lou Ford. Lou is a cop. He's not Dirty Harry. He doesn't carry a gun, or a club. But he's no Barney Fife, Either. He's a small town deputy with a problem. Lou has a dark secret. Something in his past hangs over him like a black cloud. Most people in town consider him good natured, but dull. He's the kind of person no one ever gives a second thought to. But, he has that secret. It has something to do with an unexplained death. I'd like to say more, but I don't want to give it away.

Lou has a girlfriend. She's a local girl next door type. She's a real good girl (and in this type of story, that spells trouble). He also has a little something on the side, in the parlance of our times. This second girl isn't so good. She's a rather stereotypical bad girl. This difference in Lou's two lovers creates an interesting dichotomy. It's as if these two women (who obviously satisfy different desires) represent two sides of Lou's personality. They each speak for half of him. Lou is, as it is easy to see, a man in conflict. He wants to be that dull, good natured fella, that treats everyone nicely. He has built this reputation, going so far as to treat with respect and kindness even those unfortunate criminals that he must arrest. Yet, there is a part of him that struggles for control. This is a dark part. The portion of his psyche that worries about that skeleton hidden in his closet. There is a battle going on within Lou. And considering the type of book this is, we can easily guess with side will win.

Yes. It does end in an orgy of destruction. Yes. Lou does suffer the final breakdown. The sickness, as it were, does get the better of him. Everyone around him pays in full.

That is the plot. Of course, plot isn't everything. We've all seen hundreds of stories that play out the same way. What is important here is style and substance. Thompson chooses to use a first person narrative. This places the reader squarely inside the mind of our anti-hero. We are privy to every thought, every bent intuition, every nuance of madness that streaks through Lou Ford's fevered brain. We cannot escape the twisted version of reality that Lou experiences. This fact lends an immediacy, a reality to the story that makes it hard to turn away from.

Thompson uses a tight, precise style of writing. This is characteristic of all of his novels. He does not mince words, or waste space. He keeps the reader firmly rooted within the story he needs to tell. And, there is a sense of need within the writing. It is as if Thompson is haunted by these characters, and must exorcize them by telling their story.

The quick pacing, and rapid development of the plot help to create a sense of tension that begins on the first page, and never lets up. This tension builds right up until the inevitable end. We can see the end coming. But, and this is a real strength, Thompson manages to make us wish for a different ending than the one we expect. That's right, he makes us feel empathy for Lou. We hope against hope that things can work out for him. Despite his vicious nature, despite the evil acts we have witnessed, we long for him to "get away with it". We long for the happily ever after. We should really shower, and watch a Disney movie. Dumbo, maybe. This could bring us back to the reality in which we're nice people who don't root for the villain.

The greatest strength of this book lies in the unexpected moments. Thompson is able to surprise, to elate, to transcend his genre. At one point, right in the middle, in the midst of sickness and madness, and abhorrent violence, we are treated to something different. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, Lou is musing about couples. He talks about those odd couples you see (Skinny Man/ Obese woman, Tall woman/ short man, Old man/ young woman, you get the idea). Lou thinks about how at some point these two mismatched people saw each other, and what they saw was everything they had ever wanted. This moment in the book moves beyond crime fiction. It elevates itself into the realm of literature. Not just literature, but great literature. Nobakov would have been proud of this moment. Martin Amis would kill for a moment like that.

The novel's end is also of note. I wont give it away, obviously. I know, I know, we can guess the end. Never the less, I wont tell you the specifics. But, despite writing the denouement we expect, Thompson manages to approach it in a way that is unexpected. He surprises us.

I like this book a great deal. I have read it twice, and plan to read it again. I imagine that if you like crime fiction (by this I mean good crime fiction, not the Nora Roberts, or John Grisham variety), that you'll enjoy this novel as much as I have.

While some of the impact of this tale has tempered in time (it was originally published in 1952), the stark brutality of the narrator draws you in slowly ... and the novel's first 150 pages are relatively slow-paced ... until the reader comes to the full realization that Officer Lou Ford isn't committing the acts of violence that he does out of any other need than to feed the killer inside him.

The last forty to fifty pages of this book are captivatingly brilliant prose -- arguably the best by Mr. Thompson -- and should be carefully read (if not reread) by serious fans of mystery or noir as well as budding mystery, thriller, and suspense writers. They serve not only as a character study into the mind of a madman who finally understand what he is but also give a definitive explanation into why the narrator will never accept what he's done (the people he's killed, those he's punished, etc.) as being morally wrong.

All in all, it's one damn fascinating character study that takes a while to get going ... but, once it does, it's one wild ride.

Central City in West Texas is the place where this unusual first person narrative unfolds. Lou Ford, one of Jim Thompson's most recognizable characters, is a deputy sheriff and to all who know him he's a dull-witted, amiable guy, ill suited for a career in law enforcement because he's just too gentle. Ford himself uses the term "rube" to describe his own station in life.
Of course that is the exact opposite of reality. Ford is not dull-witted. He's a highly intelligent individual who likes to solve calculus problems for relaxation. And the amiable, gentle part is also just an act. The truth is there's a callous homicidal maniac lurking under that very thin veneer of artificial friendliness.
The Killer Inside Me is an extremely unsettling novel. Thompson has Lou Ford freely reveal his homicidal thoughts to the reader, while the other characters, at least most of them, are completely taken in by his hayseed demeanor and his aw shucks way of speaking.
This book is a masterful example of how a talented author has it within his or her power to manipulate readers at a very visceral level. A classic of American fiction.

Although crime fiction has never been of particular interest to me, I actually discovered Thompson's "Killer Inside Me" in the horror section of a local bookstore. The cover itself held my attention: a deranged, "Deliverancesque" face grimacing at the jagged orange lines which gave us a clue into the psyche of the protagonist, or rather the anti-protagonist. Along with Kubrick's blurb (I couldn't imagine a better or more believable "sociopathic" narrative than the one Kubrick offered in his classic "Clockwork") I envisioned in my mind a seedy novel which detailed the gleeful rampage of a madman with a badge.

I was dead wrong. Not only is this not your typical "I'm actually a twisted (...) and no one knows it" piece of fiction, Thompson's murderer is in actuality as mind numbingly complex as the beautifully simple, commonplace mentality in which he writes. Lou Ford is a town sherrif with seemingly honest sensibilities, hardline values, and a great deal of empathy for the downtrodden and disinherited. Striking his fellow townspeople as a warm, somewhat monotonous but ever reliable upholder of the law, Ford's slow and fascinating downfall reveals the inner world of a man who is not so much a ruthless killer as a conflicted psychopath attempting to grasp his own identity (which he does not have) within the circumference of his surroundings and by turns tender and vicious relationships with the opposite sex. The brutal scenes in which he coldly calculates and executes those who 'stand in his way' (including women who are seemingly ignorant of 'the sickness' right up until the bloody end) are so divergent from the rest of his narrative that the reader is genuinely shocked and frightened. Ford displays not so much a facade to others as a pathetic 'do gooder' mentality which he needs to conceal the fact that not only does he lack much emotion of any kind, but that the other side of his split/schizoid personality could emerge at any moment.

Ford's relationship with Johnnie Papas, the young town 'screw up' is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the entire novel. On one level he seems to genuinely empathize with the young man's pitiable position in life, and we see understanding dialogues between the two characters; later, in the depths of the county jail, we see Lou bash his throat in after giving his 'real', chilling feelings about the world and Johnnie's honest but rough position in it.

In the last chapter, we see the 'other' Lou Ford full blown. I won't ruin it for other readers, but I will say that it is undoubtedly one of the most chilling pieces of fiction I have ever read.

This is a quick-paced, relatively short novel that purportedly amounts to "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered" (quote by Stanley Kubrick on front cover). While I think this is a great overstatement, I did find the book very engaging and entertaining. I don't think it conveyed a terribly nuanced or deep evocation of sociopathic thinking, and I found parts of the book to be a bit confusing and obscure in their use of indirect language. But it is a solid, classic choice that maintains its suspense and that successfully evokes a different time, place, and culture.

All is not as it seems as we start in on this is chilling account told by Lou Ford, a sheriffs deputy in a small town in Texas. This easy-going, well-liked man is a respected citizen of the town and is well known for his quiet, gentle nature. But its all an act and as Lou tells us a little about his past, the demons in his head are revealed as are the reasons behind his secret, violent nature.

This is a serial killer book with a couple of very interesting features. The first is, it was written back when stories about serial killers werent very common and so, was pretty groundbreaking stuff. The second is that it is written entirely in the first person from the point of view of the killer, so we get the total range of emotions from before, during and after each murder. The thought processes that prompt every action and the way he goes about covering up his tracks really does make for interesting reading.

We get a terrific example of the grim style of Jim Thompsons storytelling that is at once captivating and slightly horrifying. The Killer Inside Me fully deserves the praise that Ive seen given to it and Im adding my own to it here.

Nearly 20 years ago, I came upon an omnibus edition of Thompson published by Zomba (a British company). It was my first taste of Thompson, and whatta sampler: THE GETAWAY, THE KILLER INSIDE ME, THE GRIFTERS and POP. 1280!!! (Oh how I wish I'd never loaned it out.) Too late now; the word's out on Thompson, but THE KILLER INSIDE ME was worth buying twice. The secret ingredient of this and most of Thompson's best novels is a simple one: a drawling, folksy, intensely likable first-person narrator who not only draws you into the story but effortlessly wins your confidence, slowly, slowly, by small increments, turns into a deranged psychopath - and suddenly, it dawns on the reader that: a)this character has been deranged from the first page; and b)ALL your preconceived notions about characters, settings and situations in the novel may be dreadfully wrong. Geoffrey O'Brien calls this Thompson specialty the "sucker punch in which the bottom drops out of everything". Re-reading this book, I was again floored by his mastery of the trap-door, essentially switching narrative gears so fluidly that he achieves something beyond suspense: call it profound unease behind a mask of utter, banal normalcy. Strangely (though somewhat apropos for a writer who toiled in obscurity, unheralded till long after his death), many readers -corrupted by that NY Review of Books worldview which posits that only elegant prose is worthwhile prose- still dismiss his best work, while praising his many imitators and literary descendants (who had the luxury of reading Thompson in order to work more stylized variations of his effects). But don't be fooled by these snuff-box 'realists': there's more gritty and nightmarish authenticity in this novel (and many others he wrote) than in a stack of the more 'literary' wannabes who followed in his wake. When Lou Ford grinds his cigar into a beggar's outstretched palm, laughing like hell, you'll feel a jolt of electricity and danger few books can deliver, regardless of whether this was first published as a 25-cent paperback original or not. Buy this book and be on the lookout for his others.

I imagine that Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me" was quite a shocker upon first publication in 1952, when the idea of the psychopathic serial killer was still quite unusual. Thompson's protagonist, small town deputy sheriff Lou Ford, tells his tale of murder and mayhem in the first person, which adds to the book's sense of dread. 1950s-era notions of morality and chivalry are also key to the development of the plot. A prosecutor can, for example, accuse a man of murder while questioning him, but it isn't good form to degrade his mother by calling him an S.O.B. while doing so. The only caveat to recommending this book is that its shock value is somewhat diminished by the many real life horrors our modern society has witnessed since it first hit the shelves.

A quick page turner and relatively brief at 244 pages, this is one tough "Killer."

I wandered into the Mysterious Bookstore in Manhattan looking to find something different. The lay of the store told me that this would be the case. I had been reading up on serial killers, both real and imagined, on and off for some time. I asked the clerk if he could point me in the direction of some sort of crime novel. I explained what I was interested in and he said that I might like hard-boiled detective fiction. He showed me Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and then said that the best of all of them was this guy, Jim Thompson. He showed me "The Killer Inside Me," and "The Gifters." I bought "The Grifters" as I was familiar with the title from the film, which I still haven't seen. I was hooked. I went back later and bought "The Killer Inside Me" which the clerk had claimed was Jim Thompon's best book. I read it cover to cover and thought that indeed it must be his best book. It was the best book I had read yet about the dissolute. I felt drawn to this charater of Lou Ford. I felt for all his problems, he is a sort of hero for all of us little people who try and try and don't ever seem to get a break. The phrase, "All of us that started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much and got so little,that meant so good and did so bad." summed it up for me. He makes his bad guy the hero by bringing him to this level. The kind of guy who, in a perfect world, might be great, or at the vey least good, but in this world is left doing time in the gutter indefinitely. An open letter to anyone considering this, or any other Jim Thompson novel. Read it. I consider myself fortunate that I wandered into the Mysterious Bookstore. Jim Thompson is now my favorite writer. My one regret about all of this is that when I am done reading all his novels, as I will soon be, there will be no more new books. I have comfort that I can return to the stories I've read. But that adventure of meeting Lou Ford and all Jim Thompson's other creations for the first time will be gone. Ah, such is life.