Jim Thompson

Jake Winroy had no looks, no education, and little else before he'd worked his way to the top of a million-dollar-a-month horse-betting ring. But when the state's latched onto his game, the feds take a bite and the lawyer fees eat away at the rest, all Jake's got left is the bottle and a...

A classic crime novel about a kidnapping scheme gone wrong from Jim Thompson's, America's "Dimestore Dostoevsky." William "Kid" Collins was once a respected boxer. Now he's a drifter, on the run after escaping from a mental institution. One afternoon he meets Fay, a beautiful young widow. She is...

Frank "Dolly" Dillon has a job he hates, working sales and collections for Pay-E-Zee Stores, a wife named Joyce he can't stand, and an account balance that barely allows him to pay the bills each month. Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he...

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to...

In The Killer Inside Me, America's "Dimestore Dostoevsky" Jim Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be...

This classic southern noir follows the seemingly dim-witted small-town sherriff Nick Corey as his bid for re-election takes him down a path of lies, manipulation, and deception. Nick Corey is a terrible sheriff on purpose. He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows...

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up. THE GETAWAY...

Orphaned by a tragic accident at sixteen, Tommy Burwell's been scraping out a meager existence working dead-end jobs for years. When he and fellow nomad Four Trey Whitey get jobs working with dynamite, making way for a new pipeline across the deserted plains of Far West Texas, disaster ensues...

To everyone he's every played dice with, Mitch Corley seems like the luckiest guy around. But in truth, Corley's fast hands are the only gift fate's ever given him. He's never held down a steady job, and when it comes to women, his luck might just be the worst of all -- his girlfriend and...

In trouble more often than not, guilty of assault, manslaughter, and honorably discharged from the military by the skin of his teeth, David "Bugs" McKenna can't seem to help doing the right thing at the wrong time--or the wrong thing, every chance he gets. But when he drifts his way into Ragtown...

It was supposed to be only a temporary job -- something to pay the bills until Dusty could get his feet back on the ground and raise enough money for medical school. After all, there's nothing wrong with being a bellboy at a respectable hotel like the Manton -- that is, until she came along...

A love triangle explodes into something more sinister in this crime thriller from "the best suspense writer going, bar none" (New York Times). Joe Wilmot can't stand his wife Elizabeth. But he sure loves her movie theater. It's a modest establishment in a beat-down town—but Joe has the run of...

By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a...

Tommy is fingered for murder in this shocking, twisting tale that explores sex, American Indian rituals, simmering race politics in mid-20th century Oklahoma and, of course, crime....

Joe Wilmot, trying to go straight after a stretch in the pen, finds a movie house in a small crossroads that can use a helping hand and someone with half a brain for business. ...

Luane Devore's days are numbered. All her neighbors in the declining seaside resort town of Manduwoc want her dead. Some, like her young husband Ralph and his girlfriend Danny, want the thousands of dollars she keeps hidden under the mattress she spends her days resting on. Others want her to...

Se un grande autore come Joe R. Lansdale si scomoda per dire che Notte selvaggia è uno dei suoi romanzi preferiti nella produzione dell'amatissimo Jim Thompson, una ragione dovrà pur esserci. In effetti, la figura tormentata del protagonista, Carl Bigelow, il killer assoldato dall'Uomo...

Britton Rainstar never knew he could love a woman as deeply as he does Manuela Aloe and be so terrified of her at the same time. It's not just that he thinks she's out of his league. It's more that the longer he stays with her, the closer to death he seems to come. A vicious dog is somehow let...

Chi ha detto che tra moglie e marito non è mai il caso di mettere il dito? C’è chi lo fa e pure con discreto successo. Quando nella fiacca routine di Joe ed Elizabeth, che insieme gestiscono l’unico cinematografo della cittadina di Stoneville, irrompe la giovane e apparentemente...

Nel calcolo delle probabilità, l'imponderabile va sempre messo in conto. Ecco perché il trucchetto oliato e utilizzato un'infinità di volte con successo da Roy Dillon, truffatore spregiudicato e senza scrupoli, si dimostra un'arma a doppio taglio: il negoziante che lo smaschera non ci...