The Killer Inside Me

Although it is fiction, the use of the first person gets you so absorbed that you feel like it’s a true biography of a psychopathic killer.

Central City in West Texas is the place where this unusual first person narrative unfolds. Lou Ford, one of Jim Thompson's most recognizable characters, is a deputy sheriff and to all who know him he's a dull-witted, amiable guy, ill suited for a career in law enforcement because he's just too gentle. Ford himself uses the term "rube" to describe his own station in life. Of course that is the exact opposite of reality. Ford is not dull-witted. He's a highly intelligent individual who likes to solve calculus problems for relaxation. And the amiable, gentle part is also just an act. The truth is there's a callous homicidal maniac lurking under that very thin veneer of artificial friendliness. The Killer Inside Me is an extremely unsettling novel. Thompson has Lou Ford freely reveal his homicidal thoughts to the reader, while the other characters, at least most of them, are completely taken in by his hayseed demeanor and his aw shucks way of speaking. This book is a masterful example of how a talented author has it within his or her power to manipulate readers at a very visceral level. A classic of American fiction.

Jim Thompson may well have been one of the most filmic writers ever to work. His books have inspired quite a number of films including Grifters, The Getaway, The Getaway (yes, I said it twice. It's been filmed twice. Once wonderfully with Steve McQueen and Allie McGraw, once terribly with Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger), Coup de Torchon, After Dark, My Sweet and to some extent From Dusk Till Dawn. He also wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory. Thompson worked in a well worn genre. He walked the same fields as James M. Cain, Dashiel Hammet, and more recently, Elmore Leonard. Thompson wrote real tough guy fiction. In the pages of his books bad men do bad things, and are often undone by bad women (or sometimes unlucky women). To clarify, Thompson wrote Noir. These are bedtime stories for the criminally insane. Thompson's work will appeal to people who enjoy Chinatown, The Big Sleep, American Psycho, and gritty stories that take place in dark alleys, and rain swept streets. His novels are best read by lamplight, with a glass of Jack Daniels close at hand. The Killer Inside Me is no exception to this rule. It is the story of Lou Ford. Lou is a cop. He's not Dirty Harry. He doesn't carry a gun, or a club. But he's no Barney Fife, Either. He's a small town deputy with a problem. Lou has a dark secret. Something in his past hangs over him like a black cloud. Most people in town consider him good natured, but dull. He's the kind of person no one ever gives a second thought to. But, he has that secret. It has something to do with an unexplained death. I'd like to say more, but I don't want to give it away. Lou has a girlfriend. She's a local girl next door type. She's a real good girl (and in this type of story, that spells trouble). He also has a little something on the side, in the parlance of our times. This second girl isn't so good. She's a rather stereotypical bad girl. This difference in Lou's two lovers creates an interesting dichotomy. It's as if these two women (who obviously satisfy different desires) represent two sides of Lou's personality. They each speak for half of him. Lou is, as it is easy to see, a man in conflict. He wants to be that dull, good natured fella, that treats everyone nicely. He has built this reputation, going so far as to treat with respect and kindness even those unfortunate criminals that he must arrest. Yet, there is a part of him that struggles for control. This is a dark part. The portion of his psyche that worries about that skeleton hidden in his closet. There is a battle going on within Lou. And considering the type of book this is, we can easily guess with side will win. Yes. It does end in an orgy of destruction. Yes. Lou does suffer the final breakdown. The sickness, as it were, does get the better of him. Everyone around him pays in full. That is the plot. Of course, plot isn't everything. We've all seen hundreds of stories that play out the same way. What is important here

Although crime fiction has never been of particular interest to me, I actually discovered Thompson's "Killer Inside Me" in the horror section of a local bookstore. The cover itself held my attention: a deranged, "Deliverancesque" face grimacing at the jagged orange lines which gave us a clue into the psyche of the protagonist, or rather the anti-protagonist. Along with Kubrick's blurb (I couldn't imagine a better or more believable "sociopathic" narrative than the one Kubrick offered in his classic "Clockwork") I envisioned in my mind a seedy novel which detailed the gleeful rampage of a madman with a badge.I was dead wrong. Not only is this not your typical "I'm actually a twisted (...) and no one knows it" piece of fiction, Thompson's murderer is in actuality as mind numbingly complex as the beautifully simple, commonplace mentality in which he writes. Lou Ford is a town sherrif with seemingly honest sensibilities, hardline values, and a great deal of empathy for the downtrodden and disinherited. Striking his fellow townspeople as a warm, somewhat monotonous but ever reliable upholder of the law, Ford's slow and fascinating downfall reveals the inner world of a man who is not so much a ruthless killer as a conflicted psychopath attempting to grasp his own identity (which he does not have) within the circumference of his surroundings and by turns tender and vicious relationships with the opposite sex. The brutal scenes in which he coldly calculates and executes those who 'stand in his way' (including women who are seemingly ignorant of 'the sickness' right up until the bloody end) are so divergent from the rest of his narrative that the reader is genuinely shocked and frightened. Ford displays not so much a facade to others as a pathetic 'do gooder' mentality which he needs to conceal the fact that not only does he lack much emotion of any kind, but that the other side of his split/schizoid personality could emerge at any moment.Ford's relationship with Johnnie Papas, the young town 'screw up' is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the entire novel. On one level he seems to genuinely empathize with the young man's pitiable position in life, and we see understanding dialogues between the two characters; later, in the depths of the county jail, we see Lou bash his throat in after giving his 'real', chilling feelings about the world and Johnnie's honest but rough position in it.In the last chapter, we see the 'other' Lou Ford full blown. I won't ruin it for other readers, but I will say that it is undoubtedly one of the most chilling pieces of fiction I have ever read.

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.

Nearly 20 years ago, I came upon an omnibus edition of Thompson published by Zomba (a British company). It was my first taste of Thompson, and whatta sampler: THE GETAWAY, THE KILLER INSIDE ME, THE GRIFTERS and POP. 1280!!! (Oh how I wish I'd never loaned it out.) Too late now; the word's out on Thompson, but THE KILLER INSIDE ME was worth buying twice. The secret ingredient of this and most of Thompson's best novels is a simple one: a drawling, folksy, intensely likable first-person narrator who not only draws you into the story but effortlessly wins your confidence, slowly, slowly, by small increments, turns into a deranged psychopath - and suddenly, it dawns on the reader that: a)this character has been deranged from the first page; and b)ALL your preconceived notions about characters, settings and situations in the novel may be dreadfully wrong. Geoffrey O'Brien calls this Thompson specialty the "sucker punch in which the bottom drops out of everything". Re-reading this book, I was again floored by his mastery of the trap-door, essentially switching narrative gears so fluidly that he achieves something beyond suspense: call it profound unease behind a mask of utter, banal normalcy. Strangely (though somewhat apropos for a writer who toiled in obscurity, unheralded till long after his death), many readers -corrupted by that NY Review of Books worldview which posits that only elegant prose is worthwhile prose- still dismiss his best work, while praising his many imitators and literary descendants (who had the luxury of reading Thompson in order to work more stylized variations of his effects). But don't be fooled by these snuff-box 'realists': there's more gritty and nightmarish authenticity in this novel (and many others he wrote) than in a stack of the more 'literary' wannabes who followed in his wake. When Lou Ford grinds his cigar into a beggar's outstretched palm, laughing like hell, you'll feel a jolt of electricity and danger few books can deliver, regardless of whether this was first published as a 25-cent paperback original or not. Buy this book and be on the lookout for his others.