Ironside

by Jim Thompson

Vintage TV tie-in paperback

Genres: Crime, Media Tie In, Tv, Mystery

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

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 late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.

Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.

The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, 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."

Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

As income from his novels was minimal, Thompson starting writing for TV and the movies in the late 50s. Studios were also looking for additional revenue streams, so they started publishing books as tie-ins to the shows and films. Thompson wrote an apparently original story to tie-in to the TV show Ironsides. It was a welcome relief from his later novels, which were often the inner workings of his characters' fractured minds. This book was in a more traditional style, with serious police work, and an intriguing story, the solving of some mystery killings.

[Rob Dinsmoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yippie! It exists! Favorite line (which he used in another book): "It was the kind of place where you could spit on the floor and no one cared."

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

True pulp fiction

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is just too flamin' goofy. I remember seeing the show on TV as a kid in the early 70s. Looking it up on "the internets" I see the show was on the air from 1967 to 1975. I don't remember anything specific about any particular episodes, but I don't recall it being as oddball as depicted in this book by Jim Thompson. Did Ironside always use the word "flamin'" in his speech? I don't remember. I looked this novel up in the Thompson biography written by Robert Polito (btw, excellent and highly recommended) and it says he was given the assignment to write a novel based on the series by the editor at Popular Library, Jim Bryans. He was paid $2000 for the job. This was at a time he had very little money and very little writing success. The novel itself starts off interestingly enough, as we meet The Killer in a saloon in San Francisco, "a place where if you didn't spit on the floor at home you could go down there and do it." It's a bizarre enough setting that you're fooled into thinking you might be in for some of Thompson's savage, grotesque, humor and weirdness. Then as the short chapters go by, the book kind of loses its mojo. According to Polito's biography, the book is a mishmash of unpublished material Thompson had worked up along with bits of memory from his youth, and all kind of shoved into a story that's supposed to be based on a TV show. There would be more IRONSIDE novels appearing on spinner racks, but none of them would be written by Jim Thompson. Ultimately, just an odd book that I can't really recommend for fans of Jim Thompson's classics.

[Freddie Know-it-all · Rating 1 out of 5]

WNS [Will Not Start]

Normally, I'd read anything by JT, but I had to draw the line here.

This book caused the Gimmick TV Show that caused all the ramps, lost parking spots, double-wide toilets, and countless other Steps of Degradation that are slowly and surely sending us back onto all-fours.

The ADA wouldn't even be a dried tear in a Female Socialist's eye if the book didn't cause the show that caused the laws.

That era gave us tough guys living on houseboats, tough guys with kooky pets, tough guys with peculiar automobiles, tough guys who wore funny hats, tough guys who flew gliders, tough guys with a glass eye, and tough guys who sucked lollipops. All Gimmicks. Sucker-bait.

But a tough guy in a wheelchair? That's Peak Gimmick, and if they weren't chislers to man, they'd be embarrassed.

[CarolynAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was entralled by the TV series so read any books that were based on TV series that I liked. This was ok.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tie-in novel with the TV series starring Raymond Burr.

The mystery is a good one, with an effective twist at the end regarding the killer's identity.

Along with this is an emphasis on how Ironside's team of detectives has become his de facto family, though Ironside is far too gruff to admit this aloud. Another theme that ties tangentially into that one is an emphasis on forgiveness, redemption and friendship involving several people involved in the murder case.

[Ida · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally learned the full extent of the complex relationship between ironside, eve and ed "In a sense, they WERE bob ironside. for such is the miracle of unwavering devotion, of perfect understanding." i watched the show and i always thought they got along, but i didnt realize how well until i read this book. Jim Thompson had to really swallow all literary pride when he inserted the word "flaming" instead of the less tv friendly fucking twice on every page.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

based on the TV series by the great crime novelist.