The Killer Inside Me in Point Blank

Jan 25, 2015 Melki rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-fiction

"It's always lightest just before the dark..."

This is one terrific tale, though nasty as all get out.

Thompson seems to have serious Mommy issues, as all his women, be they whores or schoolmarms, are shrewish harpies. AND, he seems to believe that a good beating is the only foreplay a woman should ever need.

He is not alone in his cringe-worthy treatment of the ladies. It seems to be a common problem that has bugged the hell out of me in other books of this ilk and is probably the main reason ...more

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Feb 13, 2014 Paul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: crime-thrillers, pulp-fiction

'The Killer Inside Me' by Jim Thompson

This is my first experience of a Jim Thompson novel & if this is typical of his work, it won't be my last.
I first came across Thompson whilst reading an introduction in one of Richard Stark's novels, who Stark cites as one of his influences & if you've read any of the 'Parker' novels you will notice a similar style to Thompson.
Thompson himself admired Fyodor Dostoyevsky & critic/author Geoffrey O'Bren called Thompson the '"Dime-store Dostoyevsky." Whils 'The Killer Inside Me' by Jim Thompson

This is my first experience of a Jim Thompson novel & if this is typical of his work, it won't be my last.
I first came across Thompson whilst reading an introduction in one of Richard Stark's novels, who Stark cites as one of his influences & if you've read any of the 'Parker' novels you will notice a similar style to Thompson.
Thompson himself admired Fyodor Dostoyevsky & critic/author Geoffrey O'Bren called Thompson the '"Dime-store Dostoyevsky." Whilst comparison with Dostoyevsky may be a 'long bow to draw' there is no doubt they share some common attributes. Both draw vivid & vibrant characters. Both authentically portray their respective eras in their use of language, social conditions & cultural attitudes & prejudices. What i love about Thompsons writing is that, of course, they were written in the era he sets his stories in. That touch of authenticity cannot be matched by modern writers, i don't believe.
'The Killer Inside Me' is told in the first person by Sheriff's Deputy Lou Ford, who to his fellow townspeople seems a likable, amiable, but somewhat dimwitted individual. This carefully cultivated facade masks a monster totally devoid of empathy for his fellow man or any 'normal' emotions we associate with what it is to be a human being.
As a teenager, Ford assaults a young girl & is caught by his older step brother, who for some inexplicable reason takes the blame & is sent to prison. Upon his release, his brother gets a job in construction & is killed on the job in mysterious circumstances. Ford blames the company's owner, Chester Conway, for his brother's death & takes his revenge by killing Conway's son.
Throughout this tale, Ford justifies his killing of Conway (& other's) by claiming (to himself) that his victim's deaths were unavoidable & somehow self defense. At one point though, during one of his many internal dialogues, he concedes he kills, because he likes it. That Deputy Lou Ford is a psychopath, there can be no doubt. You would expect Ford to have a head full of writhing serpents. But far from being the dimwit his fellow townsfolk think him to be, he is extremely intelligent. His every act is carefully considered & ruthlessly executed.
Things start to unravel for Ford when he realizes there may be one witness who can bring his carefully constructed 'house of cards' crashing down. But even staring defeat in the face, he manages, ever the manipulator, to…

If you like a great psychological thriller in the very best tradition of the Pulp Fiction/ Hard Case Crime genre, i urge you to read this. I give this 5 out of 5 stars.

Good reading! ...more

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Jun 22, 2017 Dave rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction-all, crime-fiction-pulp, 100-top-crime-fiction, crime-fiction-noir

In 1952, Lion Books published Jim Thompson’s tour-de-force psychological noir thriller, The Killer Inside Me. Thompson offered us readers a very different look at crime than typically is found. Instead of a machine-gun wielding bank robber or a plotting syndicate or someone manipulating people to get ahold of a jeweled statue, we got inside the head of a twisted killer. The novel Killer Inside Me is narrated by one Deputy Lou Ford who offers a tour of how twisted his thought-patterns are. And we In 1952, Lion Books published Jim Thompson’s tour-de-force psychological noir thriller, The Killer Inside Me. Thompson offered us readers a very different look at crime than typically is found. Instead of a machine-gun wielding bank robber or a plotting syndicate or someone manipulating people to get ahold of a jeweled statue, we got inside the head of a twisted killer. The novel Killer Inside Me is narrated by one Deputy Lou Ford who offers a tour of how twisted his thought-patterns are. And we quickly learn that he is psychologically damaged and that his father and brother spent their lives covering up how twisted and vicious Ford really is.

One of the most shocking things about The Killer Inside Me is that the killer is not someone you would expect. Lou Ford is an aw-shucks-ma’am small-town Gomer Pyle-acting deputy. He’s everyone’s chum, but at the same time just like most of those politicians and used car salesmen that pretend to be everyone’s friend, he is really no one’s friend but himself. This shocking fact that he appears to be an ordinary non-threatening guy, a bank teller, a waiter, a stockroom clerk rather than a hardened criminal with a shady past is fully astounding. It is as if Thompson is telling us to look around and be careful because you don’t really know who is who or who is going to snap. At one point in the first chapter, we are given a preview that he enjoys making fools out of people. “Striking at people that way is almost as good as the other, the real way. The way I’d fought to forget – and had almost forgot – until I met her.”

Ford at times in his narrative even quotes psychological studies and shows that he understands the roots of his pathology, stemming from some odd sexualized relationship he had with the housekeeper and that, thereafter, every woman he gets involved with, reminds him of her and he is striking out at her. This follows through in his relationship with the town madam Joyce Lakeland and his too-cute-to-be-true relationship with Amy Stanton. In both instances, we later learn that he is sadomasochistic and has marked both women repeatedly with bruises in places that ordinarily would not show in public. He beats Joyce with a belt the first time he meets her and then goes back the next day and the day after that. And, yes, he seems to enjoy battering both women in the end, telling us how he backs Joyce against the wall, slugging, “and it was like pounding a pumpkin. Hard, then everything giving way at once.” Then, he is with Amy, his sweetheart, later that night and as they are talking he thinks, “That’s what you think, honey. I’m doing you a favor by not beating your head off.”

One of the other things you as a reader will notice, particularly in re-reading for the second or third time, just how much of the book is modeled around the idea that, at a certain point, Ford was no longer fooling anyone. Everyone is starting to get suspicious of him and, in his pathology, he strikes out to cover up both his 15-year-past attack on a three-year-old that his brother apparently took the rap for and then to cover up each and every step of what he is covering up. He tells us he “hadn’t had the sickness in almost fifteen years. Not since [he] was fourteen.:” We do not know exactly what the “sickness” was except that his father gave him a vasectomy when he was young so that the genes could not be spread.

But that is Ford’s thing, trying to act naturally and not let the “sickness” take control of him. He knows when Joyce first pushes him away that he could not let himself get out of control. “It might bring the sickness back.” He might kill her and, if he did not, she might yell her head off and “people would start thinking, thinking and wondering about that time fifteen years ago.”

As the story goes on, you realize that the walls are all closing in on Ford and that he is eventually going to run out of people to kill. Joe Rothman, the labor union guy, is the first one to pierce the veil and tells Ford to save the bullshit for the birds and that it is a good act, but it is easy to overdo. Even Ford starts to realize that eventually given enough time people close to him would start putting the pieces together and then it would be curtains for him.

But Ford never really feels guilty for what he does or what the sickness makes him do. He tells us that he “wasn’t any more cold-blooded than the dame who’d have me in hell to get her own way.” And he enjoys when he is in custody and they are trying to break him and they keep showing slides of his girl on the wall. He loves the memories and wants them to slow down the slides. See, they can’t break Ford cause maybe he is already broken.

The Killer Inside Me is a startling look inside a killer’s twisted brain, his justifications, his rationales, and the fact that he feels no guilt for what he has done. Imagine how startling this novel was when it first came out in 1952! ...more

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Jan 13, 2017 Robin rated it really liked it

An engrossing story in which Lou Ford, Deputy Sheriff of a small town, is unmasked as a cold blooded killer. Written in the first person, we know pretty early on in the book that he is a killer, that he has, as he describes it, 'the sickness' and the fact that we are privy to his thought processes and the way he keeps up appearances makes for one of the most interesting characters I've ever read.

My first Jim Thompson book and I'll be reading more. ...more

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