Customer Reviews

The Transgressors

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Jim Thompson has written some exciting novels, but his canon also comprises quite a few second-tier books, including "The Transgressors." Tom Lord is bright man from a good family, who through a series of misfortunes is unable to pursue his dream of becoming a physician. Instead, he ends up a sheriff's deputy in the small West Texas oil boom town of Big Sands. Lord hates his job and feels cheated by life. He grasps at one final straw - a land lease that might contain oil. When he gets swindled by a small oil company, Lord vows to get revenge. The plot develops from here and Lord becomes entangled with various low-lifes and swindlers as well as a potential love interest.

As with many Thompson novels, the plot is full of glaring holes and coincidences. However, his protagonists are usually fairly well etched, and Lord joins the pantheon of intriguing Thompson characters. A number of themes representative of Thompson's work are also included here, such as the main character being a law man as well as the son of a deceased doctor. However, these themes are not used to much avail here and the plot and characters simply don't gel cohesively. Ironically, "The Transgressors" was published between two of Thompson's finest novels - "The Getaway" and "The Grifters." If you're new to Thompson, then you should read one of these books first.

Yes, it's a little atypical Thompson. But just because it's not the bleak nihilism of The Getaway or The Grifters doesn't mean it's not a good read. There are some interesting characters here, with the main character a sort of well-adjusted version of Killer Inside Me's Lou Ford (Lou Ford, Tom Lord, hmm). The plot is intricate and engaging, call it three and a half stars.

Thompson is going through the motions here, with what is for him a very typical, even ordinary plot and an inconsistently characterized protagonist. The two female leads are unusually annoying, and the stakes never seem very high, despite the increasing body count. It's got its moments, but overall this is a major disappointment. Still, it's better than Texas By the Tail.

If you want a taste of Thompson, just about any one of his other books is a better starting place.

Jim Thompson IS a great writer, he writes vintage crime noir, and most of his tales of the seaminess of man are terrific, but this is not one of them. And it begins terrifically to boot, so one becomes more and more suprised as one reads on, for the book simpily gets worse as one reads. The characters are mostly two dimensional, and the plot loses all coherence quickly. Please, pick up his four star works like The Getaway, The Grifters, and a personal favorite, Now And On Earth, et.all.

The Transgressors fails to make the grade as a novel because it contains far too many preposterous plot elements. Almost nothing that happens in this book rings true. Protagonist Tom Lord comes off as foolhardy and, at times, just plain foolish rather than as the man of breeding and intelligence he is purported to be.

A couple of the more minor characters (I'm referring here to George Carrington and Buck Harris) are described in such a way that the reader will be able to recognize them as representing flesh and blood people even though they themselves are over-the-top caricatures. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of The Transgressors' characters bear no relationship whatsoever to anyone inhabiting the real world and are, therefore, not very interesting and completely forgettable.

Even the most diehard Jim Thompson fans will have to admit this book has very little to offer.

My first experience with Jim Thompson was a complete accident, when I picked up an audio copy of Pop. 1280 during a non-stop drive across the country. Even though Pop. 1280 had a few uneven moments, I think of it as classic Thompson, and measure everything else I read of his side by side with that seminal work.

Having said that, The Transgressors falls far short of some of his other novels, but fans of the noir thriller will still find all the elements that attract them to that genre present and accounted for. Like all genre literature, there is still a possibility that the material will rise above the constraints of the form and touch on universal themes - but The Transgressors does not make that leap. One reviewer mentioned that he thought that 'Thompson was just going through the motions', but I have to believe that working with the limited palette that Thompson did, that there were only so many times he could rise above the average and create something truly outstanding.

Either way, whether he was only going through the motions or not, The Transgressors still delivers a good yarn, slightly wandering, but satisfactory for light reading. I would suggest anyone approaching Thompson for the first time begin with his classics, such as 'The Killer Inside Me', or 'Pop. 1280', but if you, like me, find this one in a second hand store somewhere, available for small change, don't hesitate to pick it up.

This novel is interesting for Thompson completests, but do not make it the first novel of his that you read. There are a number of his novels that are much better than this one. Still, it's a pleasant time-waster if you are Thompson fanatic.