The Killer Inside Me
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season225 pages, about 4 hours: two-thirds the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbDeputy Sheriff Lou Ford is sent to run a prostitute out of a small Texas town.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 11 reviews from critics and book blogs, 7 credit the plot and 9 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesOne reviewer ranks it above The Silence of the Lambs; another calls Lou Ford a forerunner of No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
The case for it
on the crime-fiction critique
“Thompson’s novel, which aims to be a self-undermining critique of crime fiction”
Andrew O'Hehir · Salon, 2010 on the first-person voice
“we see his murders from inches away”
Jesse Kornbluth · HeadButler, 2015 on the small town
“perfectly capturing the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town”
a book blog on Lou Ford
“he’s a compelling and complex character that you can’t help but keep reading about”
a book blog
The case against
on the bleakness
“This is about as black as noir gets.”
a book blog on the middle section
“the book dragged through much of the middle”
a book blog on the protagonist
“he’s the worst part of the book”
a Substack review on the other characters
“other characters become two-dimensional because we only see what the narrator sees”
a book blog
