Product Description

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he's a little slow and boring but that's the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his 'sickness'. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. Now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again - and the consequences are brutal and devastating. Tense and suspenseful, THE KILLER INSIDE ME is a brilliantly sustained noir crime masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21083 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. After an itinerant childhood during which his sheriff father was driven from office for embezzlement; and as a roughneck in the Texan oil fields of the 1920s, Thompson became successful as a writer with the pulp fiction houses of the 1950s, writing a dozen of his more enduring novels in just 19 months. He also wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory).

Customer Reviews

A classic
The best piece of Thompson I've read. Treating his psychopathic nature as an illness, Sheriff Lou Ford draws you deep into his twisted, double-life. His self awareness making the book all the more disturbing, I was torn between sympathy, respect and disgust throughout. You'd have to be as insane as Ford himself not to be gripped until the very end.

Small Town Killer
All is not as it seems as we start in on this is chilling account told by Lou Ford, a sheriff's 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 it's 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 weren't 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 Thompson's storytelling that is at once captivating and slightly horrifying. The Killer Inside Me fully deserves the praise that I've seen given to it and I'm adding my own to it here.

Undecided
This spree of killings is told in the first person 'Inside' the mind of the local Texas Deputy psychopath/sociopath whatever kind of 'path was relevant in 1952. As with other reviewers I read this in one sitting but it left me strangely cold from start to finish. And there is the big issue, are we meant to feel numb, indifferent just as the ruthless narrator?

His cold, analytical thinking is almost seductive. There is no sympathy though for the lead character. A lack of emotion and sterility pervades the novel including a frightening depiction of the ethics of a small town law department in the Deep South.

On finishing this novel I concluded it was closer to a strong pulp-fiction shocker and a very good read rather than a great work. However Thompson wrote the script for the Kubrick film 'Paths of Glory' and that earns bags of brownie points for me. I'm undecided - see what you think!