The Killer Inside Me

The Killer Inside Me

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96  ·  rating details  ·  6,370 ratings  ·  533 reviews
Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas.The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring.But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger.The sickness that is about to surface again.

An underground classic since its publication in 1952, The Killer...more
Paperback, 244 pages
Published March 13th 1991 by Vintage (first published January 1st 1952)
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Steve aka Sckenda
Feb 27, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Lou
“I wished, immediately, that I hadn’t said it; I was giving myself away, you see. But he didn’t seem to have heard me. Like always, he wasn’t hearing anything he didn’t want to hear.” (77)

This is Texas-noir. 1952. Oil Boom. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford. Easy-going Lou. Folks think Lou’s a little slow-- but so likeable. Lou’s gentle with drunks and screw-ups. “The man with the grin is the one who wins.” Lou smokes cigars. The bums always size him up for an easy mark.

Lou’s a killer. Rich man’s son get...more
Lou
This was a humdinger of a story written through the eyes of a sheriff Lou Ford of a small, middle-of-nowhere west Texas town of Central City. Is he an easy-going, well-liked man and a respected citizen of the town, well known for his quiet, gentle nature? On the inside he has a dark-side he is a sociopathic killer who seems to think that life is ruled by any means necessary, full of both corny, small-town bonhomie and murderous psychosexual rage. He will not hesitate to eliminate his loved ones...more
Stephen
HOWDY FOLKS…MY NAME IS LOU FORD AND I’M A MILD-MANNERED, DEPUTY SHERIFF IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN...OH BTW...I’M ALSO A SADISTIC, DEEPLY DISTURBED, PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER....NICE TO MEET YOU!!

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5.0 stars. A “one of a kind” reading experience that I can not recommend more highly for fans of noir crime fiction or psychological thrillers. Told in the first person by Lou Ford, who to all outward appearances is a thoughtful, considerate (if somewhat slow) Deputy Sheriff of Capital City, Texas, population 50,...more
Mike
The Killer Inside Me: Jim Thompson's classic Roman Noir

“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses
...more
Dan Schwent
Ever meet someone at a party and think they're pretty cool until they let something slip and you realize they may in fact be bat-shit psycho? That's how Lou Ford, the protagonist of The Killer Inside Me is. I also suspect that Jim Thompson may have been that way as well.

The Killer Inside Me is the story of Lou Ford, a small town sheriff who's a little slow and a little boring. Or he would have you believe. Lou Ford spends most of his time keeping the sickness inside him in check. Lou's a sociopa...more
notgettingenough
This was my orginal thoughts with which I was never satisfied:


Until I saw this my gut feeling was that it would be impossible to take Jim Thompson to the screen, but I stand corrected. Fabulous movie which precisely captures the spirit of Thompson’s writing. I first suggested seeing this to a male who refused on the grounds that ‘horrible things happened to women’ and they do, but I have no idea why this would be interpreted as being about ‘male hate’ ‘misogeny’. Like most people, I guess, my re...more
Nathan Alderman
Jul 25, 2007 Nathan Alderman rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: crime and horror fans, lovers of great writing
Jim Thompson worked on oil rigs in his youth. It's filthy, dangerous, deeply hair-raising work, all to get at something that's as precious as it is polluted. Reading his novels is surprisingly similar. His whiskey-soaked misogyny will make your skin crawl, but his ability to plumb the darkest corners of the human soul, with both skill and sympathy, is unmatched in literature.

This is the best Thompson book I've read by far, and one of the best books I've ever read for sheer narrative skill. His p...more
Katherine
True story: When I moved to my new town, I warned my branch librarian (a very sweet woman in her 60s) that I was writing a book about some intense subjects, and that I'd gained a reputation at my last library. Back then, I was ordering ten or twelve novel-research books on interlibrary loan every week, and my hold shelf looked like this:
HOW TO MAKE METH
3 MEMOIRS ABOUT RAPE
GETTING OVER YOUR INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA
THE COURAGE TO HEAL
STAYING CLEAN OFF METH
BDSM FOR IDIOTS

I think I only succeeded in...more
Mickey Wozny
You can smell this book. It's sweat, desperation, liquor, failure and misogyny. This is my favorite Jim Thompson book, it's an ugly book to say you enjoy, but I do and I don't feel good saying it. Like other art forms in the fifties, this book is enamored with psychology. Which reaches it's pinnacle in the final pages. Thompson reveals both personalities of the protagonist in alternating lines of the text. It is a deft understanding of a split personality for a pulpy crime novel. It's a great re...more
David
In The Killer Inside Me, which is perhaps the most important early entry in the genre of noir sociopathique, Jim Thompson figures out how to be Jim Thompson. The novel's narrator, simpleton sociopath sheriff Lou Ford, may be Thompson's most memorable and creepy creation. And while Thompson's fourth novel may not be his best--it loses its way for a bit in the final act--The Killer Inside Me is still the logical place to begin reading one of the noir masters.

First reading: circa 1993
Second reading...more
Debra
Stephen King recommended author. In the introduction to Now and On Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."

“He was crazy,” Stephen King, a long-time admirer of Thompson, says. “He went running into the American sub...more
Michael
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Matt
Apr 03, 2007 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of noir and dark satire
Scary book with which to start my reviews, yes, but here goes.

This has been considered an "underground classic" since its publication in 1952 and I can see why. I read that Stanley Kubrick had an adaptation of this written by Thompson in his files. (Thompson wrote early Kubrick films THE KILLING and PATHS OF GLORY as well) This also is no real surprise as the book reads like a film by Kubrick, Hitchcock, or current filmmakers like Fincher. I read this in about two days, but mostly because it's s...more
blake
This was a highly compelling read, and pretty well-written too. I have to admit my judgment is a little bit harsh since I read this right after John Fante's Ask the Dust, which also has an unreliable, morally-challenged narrator/protagonist and happens to be one of the most amazing novel-memoirs I've ever read. The writing here doesn't (and indeed can't) compare, but that's just me being unfair.

The writing is good though, and my favorite aspect of is the precise dialect and colloquialisms that T...more
William
Lou Ford is a sheriff's deputy in a small West Texas Town. To those who know him best, he seems a simple fellow -- even simple-minded, in a way. He is slow-witted enough to spend a half-hour talking about a glass of water, his conversation consists primarily of cliches and he doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body.

But Ford has a secret: beneath his bumpkinesque facade he is a twisted murderer and sadist who plays the part of a simpleton in order to conceal the fact he is much smarter than...more
David Mcangus
For its time, The Killer Inside Me is an impressive snap shot of the life and mind of a sociopath. It's at its best when Lou is analysing his own thoughts, describing how he adapts his personality to appear 'normal' or how naturally he disconnects himself when he kills. Thompson also gives the character a background, to provide, at least a partial explanation for what has motivated his behaviour.

This reader also got the feeling while reading, that Lou was treating me much in the same way as he...more
Edward S. Portman
Un noir raccontato in prima persona dalla voce dell’assassino, che non solo è in lui ma è anche tra le pagine. Uno stile asciutto e preciso che però incappa in alcune soluzioni che non mi sembrano del tutto eccezionali, soprattutto nel finale, durante il quale Thompson sembra dividersi tra la necessità di raccontare cose ancora non dette e la voglia di allungare in modo inspiegabile il racconto.
Non carbura subito alla perfezione, tanto che l’interesse comincia a farsi alto a pagine già inoltrat...more
Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo)
Lou Ford è un vicesceriffo di una piccola città del Texas negli anni cinquanta. Apparentemente è una persona gradevole, prevedibile e ai limiti del noioso. Ma la sua maschera cadrà progressivamente a partire dal momento in cui incontrerà Joyce, una giovane prostituta sulla cui attività è stato mandato a indagare.


Lou Ford è un simpatico, noioso, banale vicesceriffo. Vive in città da sempre e tutti pensano di conoscerlo. Lou ha un sorriso affabile e una bella faccia schietta, di quelle di cui ci s...more
Suvi
I saw the film version a while ago, and it didn't convince me that much, even though Casey Affleck's performance was hauntingly perfect. So, when I saw this in the library, I thought I should at least take a look. What a disturbing experience that was. It was like watching a horror movie: you want to close your eyes, but you can't. I could not put this down. Fortunately this was mercifully short, a larger dose would have been way too much.

Thompson didn't get much recognition while he was still a...more
Christopher Fulbright
The Killer Inside Me has become a classic in the crime genre. In the wake of high profile praise by Stephen King, and ongoing praise by many of today’s most influential crime and mystery writers, Crime Masterworks and Vintage Crime and a handful of other smaller presses have worked to reissue Jim Thompson’s books over the past twenty years. This is good for folks like me who discovered him late — the original versions of his books are long out print and go for high prices on eBay and zShops. The...more
Sloan
Despite having a name that reminds me of a late night adult thriller on Cinemax, this is one of my favorite crime novels. The thing that makes it so disturbing for me is that no matter how sick and twisted the protagonist is on the inside, he always seems so friendly and harmless on the outside, like if Andy and Barney from the Andy Griffith Show were secretly sadistic, women-killing sociopaths. It's hard to read at times due to the brutality of the story, but what makes it even worse is how Tho...more
Rob Kitchin
The Killer Inside Me is a curious read in that it manages to maintain its suspense throughout despite the unfolding of the story holding few surprises. Ford is a sociopath in the sense that at one level he appears normal and he’s self-aware of his ‘sickness’, but he’s manipulative and deceitful, has shallow emotions, lacks empathy and remorse, and can flip into extreme violence. Thompson does a great job of exploring Ford’s complex personality as he uses all of his sociopathic traits to exercise...more
Sandy
In Jim Thompson's 1952 classic of crime noir, "The Killer Inside Me," we are introduced to a very unusual law enforcement officer. He is Lou Ford, deputy of (the fictitious) Central City, Texas, a good-looking, seemingly wholesome 29-year-old who comes off to his peers as something of an oafish bumpkin, due to his fondness of using hackneyed proverbs ("Haste makes waste, in my opinion. I like to look before I leap.") and amiable, slow-thinking ways. But, as Deputy Lou reveals in his narrative, t...more
Trekscribbler
While some of the impact of this tale has tempered in time (it was originally published in 1952), the stark brutality of the narrator draws you in slowly ... and the novel's first 150 pages are relatively slow-paced ... until the reader comes to the full realization that Officer Lou Ford isn't committing the acts of violence that he does out of any other need than to feed the killer inside him.
The last forty to fifty pages of this book are captivatingly brilliant prose -- arguably the best by Mr...more
Shawn Davies
What a proper nutter! The scariest thing though is how you come to view Lou Ford’s actions as making sense, how you so easily by into this first person narrative.

Once his beast is released he begins racking up the body count in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of the dead. Environmental triggers are hinted at as the story unfolds, but we are very much concerned with his present predicament. It is being privy to Lou’s internal dialogue that is so seductive, that enfolds us in his decision makin...more
Hârum
En la portada de “El asesino dentro de mí” aparece el primer plano de un hombre con la mitad de su rostro ensombrecido. Es la imagen perfecta para describir al protagonista y su lado oscuro y psicópata. Bajo su cara, una frase de Stanley Kubrick: “la historia más escalofriante que haya leído jamás sobre una mente deformada por el crimen”. El matemático Kubrick es poco dado a los elogios y aunque la frase sea meramente publicitaria define tan bien como la fotografía de la portada este libro de Ji...more
Derek
Brilliant book, Jim Thompson truly got inside the mind of a killer. The main character Lou Ford has something he describes as a sickness, it's been a long time since he's felt it but now - due to recent events in his life - it's back and he can do nothing but give in to it. Ford wants to kill he is driven to kill, he seems to get satisfaction out of it and even find it fun. What's good about this novel is that it's told in a first person perspective so it feels like you are reading a confession...more
Gary Taylor

Playboy's best book for a manly read? C'mon, man! You can do better than this!

I first heard of this book while reading a short article in Playboy magazine about the best books for real men. Playboy put this 1952-era crime noir novel at the top of that list. Then I heard that a movie version was headed our way, starring Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. So, curiosity inspired me to give it a try. Like the magazine that recommended it, The Killer Inside Me turns out to be dated and a bi...more
Brendan
We read this book for my mystery book club, the second noir crime novel of the year. It's pretty good, but Wow, so dark. A few thoughts:

* The narrator dances along a fine line of making you enjoy him with his jaded hatred of everybody and the way he plays the rubes in the town, making them think he's a pleasant, simple country sheriff's deputy instead of a depraved murderer. Interestingly, he's both.
* A curious disconnect arose at my book club discussion of this. On one hand, one fan of the bo...more
Tim Niland
Do you know what it is like to hide part of your soul from the world? To walk through life pretending to be a human being while all the time feeling like an outsider, unsure how to talk and act around people? I feel this way all the time so I really connected with the main character of this book. Lou Ford is a small town policeman who hides his schizophrenia behind the self made mask of country bumpkin homilies that lull the people in the town into thinking he is just a harmless bore. But deep w...more
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.

Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the lat...more
More about Jim Thompson...
The Grifters Pop. 1280 The Getaway After Dark, My Sweet (Crime Masterworks) A Hell of a Woman

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