Jim Thompson has an over the top quality that is one of the core values of his writing. Texas by the Tail is not an exemplar of that style. This is more in the vein of The Grifters, my personal favorite.

Thompson is known for his punchy, no nonsense prose and his gritty take on humanity. But he can be perceptive in his pathos.

So she wept, and he wept a little with her. Not for the idealized dreams of the past, but for the immutable realities of the present. Not for what had been lost but for what had never been. Not for what might have been but for what could never be.

Thompson expended a great fraction of this novel on characterization down to the secondary characters. This is the strength of the novel. The story wobbles across Texas and ends when Thompson thought he had enough pages. Another stroke of Thompson's style.