Rating: 
Summary: I read this book 3 times in the month after I bought it
Review: Lou Ford tells a fascinating tale of a couple weeks in hislife. He has been hiding his true self from the world foryears, but to us he is laying down out straight. Or is he? Certain details just can't be right, after all, here he is telling a story that includes his own death.... The Killer Insider Me is an excellent book told from the point of view of an unreliable psychopath narrator. Each successive reading of this novel gives you a deeper insight to the true story.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly deserves its "noir classic" status
Review: Lou Ford, 29, is the Deputy Sheriff of Central City, Texas. He's a local boy, son of the town doctor, and a sure thing to marry the girl nextdoor. He's also a secret sufferer of what he terms "the sickness": text-book paranoid schizophrenia, as it turns out, the dramatic upshot of which is a penchant for committing nasty murders, preferably of women, that first emerged in adolescence and resurfaces when Lou is drawn into a plot to rid the town of a prostitute with the potential to embarrass the town's first family. Things rapidly escalate when suspicion falls on Lou and he needs to eliminate an ever-growing number of human loose ends - including several people he claims to love. The genius of Thompson's classic noir novel is that he manages to describe the truly vicious murders and all the careful premeditation that goes into them - narrated in Lou's wonderfully dead-pan voice - and yet still have you feeling for the man. By the end, you understand him. You can't forgive him, but you may accept that, for Lou, perhaps it couldn't have been any other way. There's a lot to like here: beautiful plotting, masterful use of laconic speech rhythms and Texan dialect, and a whole raft of wonderfully realized minor characters who, while still identifiably small-town types, are never just caricatures. Moreover, it's actually about something, and not just schizophrenia: there are several passages in which Thompson touches on the tenuousness of civilized morality, on the phoniness of social interaction and the dark reality it masks. This recognition of the inversion of values - the difference between the way the world is, and the way we say it is or should be - is a staple of the noir genre, but Thompson gives it a highly effective articulation here. That makes this a superior thriller. Running chills down your spine is one thing. Making you think is something else.
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Summary: Thompson's Classic psychopath
Review: Wow. There isn't anything that Thompson did half way. All of his work is fascinating, moving and accessible. The Killer Inside Me reads more like a modern day news story than a fifty year old thriller.
Thompson patiently builds the story and sets the stage in the first two thirds of the book and then after he has crafted the foundation of the twisted mind, begins to spin the story.
This is a classic thriller and a classic character. Believable and still thrilling after all these years. And true to form of Thompson, you don't know how it ends until you turn the last page.
Chilling, believable and gripping -- and good clean psychotic fun.
Mike
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Thompson Story.
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Cold and Brutal
Review: The few people who have given this work such poor reviews most likely are looking for a book with a higher body count and a lower degree of insight. The few killings for which we are witness are indeed brutal and repulsive acts. No matter if they happen in 1952 or 2003. The look inside the killer is not frantic or eratic but is cold and harsh and probing.
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Summary: Great Psychological Intrigue
Review: I decided to read a Jim Thompson novel because of Amazon[.com] recommendations. I can honestly say that Amazon[.com] did a good job. What a great jaunt into the amazingly Normal thought processes of a killer's mind. I enjoyed this book immensly, but I think it has to be approached with a certain attitude. First and foremost, this book is noir. It's not the normal Stephen King-ish kind of thriller that most pop-culture oriented readers expect of a book with the likes of "The Killer Inside Me" as it's title. Perhaps my background helps: My parents are both clinical psychologists. I knew what sociopaths and paranoid schizophrenics were before I could write. The brilliance of this book is the simplicity of it. The plot revolves around the "sickness" of Lou Ford, but it's also about a look at a seemingly normal life. Schizophrenics tend to seem normal, and that is where Jim Thompson succeeds. Lou Ford has to "dumb himself down" to maintain a sense of power and superiority over his acquaintances and colleagues. I, personally, loved his confrontation of the doctor that was sent to his house -- he thrives on feeding him book knowledge when he is supposed to be a humble sherriff. Could Lou Ford have been a Hannibal Lector? I think he certainly could have been and was definitely as disturbing a character in his own right. The difference between the characters is that Lou Ford could be your neighbor, your minister, your lover, or your best friend--and you would never know the deprivation inside his mind. To summarize: "The Killer Inside Me" is a wonderful book because of it's noir nature of suspense and it's utter realism to the true world of a killer. I can't wait to read another Jim Thompson book.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant little story
Review: This book trips along nicely in some parts. Loses it a little toward the end. A quiet Sunday afternoon book.
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