Saturday 4 November 2017

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson


“She wasn't much over five feet and a hundred pounds, and she looked a little scrawny around the neck and ankles. But that was all right. It was perfectly all right. The good Lord had known just where to put that flesh where it would really do some good.”


This novel is dark…..really dark. I’d planned to read it before the movie came out. However, the average reviews the film got meant that I’ve still not seen it. Lou Ford is not a nice guy. While he might seem like your average deputy sheriff, he could explode in violence at any minute. This guy is a killer without remorse. Lou is a psychopath and dating him, while lovely at times, could leave you lying dead as a mushy corpse.

No-one is safe around this guy and what’s worse, he makes for an engaging narrator. Perhaps that’s why this novel succeeds. You are drawn into his mucked up mind and constantly looking for some semblance of sense. Every misstep is a source of suspense. Every violent act leaves you feeling slightly complicit.

I perhaps took a point off my rating because this has extreme violence against women and that makes me rather uncomfortable. On the plus side, it represents another 1001 book ticked off the list.



4 out of 5, this is police brutality writ large.

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