Nick Corey, High Sheriff of Potts County, just wants to be left alone.
But local pimps, fellow sheriffs, ornery townspeople & a shrieking
harridan of a wife & her idiot brother all refuse to leave him be.
Everyone feels that they can get away with harassing him because Nick's
a little slow & pretty easy going. Or, at least, he seems to
be. In reality, he's psychotic, deliciously so and folks are soon
reaping the whirlwind.
This is a very funny book. As always, Thompson writes a terrific
kind of bare knuckle prose & is especially good with dialogue.
But the real fun is watching as Corey wreaks his vengeance. A hoot.
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (A-)
Websites:
See also:
Jim Thompson (
3 books reviewed)
Mystery
Book-related and General Links:
-The
Killer Beside Me: The Jim Thompson Resource Page
-BIO:
(Vintage
Books)
-BIBLIO:
Bibliography
-READERS
GUIDE: The Killers (Vintage Books)
-JIM
THOMPSON
-REVIEW:
of Savage Night by Jim Thompson (Mystery Guide)
-REVIEW:
of Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson (Brad
Tyer, Hot Wired)
-REVIEW:
of SAVAGE ART A Biography of Jim Thompson. By Robert Polito.(Tony Hilfer,
NY Times Book Review)
-ESSAY:
A Tale of Pulp and Passion: The Jim Thompson Revival (Lawrence Block, NY
Times)
-ESSAY:
The Gentrification of Crime (Luc Sante, NY Review of Books)
-ESSAY:
The Mysterious Romance of Murder: The enduring highbrow fascination
with detective stories (David Lehman, Boston Review)
-Crime
Fiction as Literature? (Monash University)
-Crime
Stories: Criminology and Fiction
-FILM
REVIEW: of Coup de Torchon (John Alderman, Hot Wired)
-Hard
Boiled: The online reference site for all things noir
Other recommended books by Jim Thompson:
-The
Getaway
-The
Grifters
-After
Dark, My Sweet
Thompson wrote the screenplay for two of Stanley Kubrick's greatest
movies:
-The
Killing
(1956--directed by Stanley Kubrick--based on the novel Clean Break
by Lionel
White--starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards,
Elisha Cook, Marie Windsor)
-Paths of Glory
(1957-directed by Stanley Kubrick--based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb--
starring: Kirk Douglas, Adolph Menjou, Ralph Meeker, George MacReady,
Wayne Morris, Richard Anderson, Timothy Carey)
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