Jim Thompson Novels (Chronological)
Explore Jim Thompson's novels in chronological order, from The Killer Inside Me to The Getaway and The Grifters. A curated list of classic noir crime fiction and suspense.
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The Killer Inside Me
by Jim Thompson
In a small town in Texas there is a sheriff's deputy named Lou Ford, a man so dull that he lives in cliches, so good-natured that he doesn't even lay a finger on the drunks who come into his custody. But then, that would be too easy, for Lou's sickness requires other victims. . . . A nightmarish book of psychopathic evil.
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Savage Night
by Jim Thompson
Is Carl Bigelow a fresh-faced college kid looking for a room, or is he a poised hit man tracking down his victim? And if Carl is really two people, what about everyone around him? Savage Night is Thompson at his best, with plot reversals and nightmarish shifts of identity.
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The Golden Gizmo
by Jim Thompson
Toddy Kent would be another footsore gold buyer hustling brooches from Los Angeles housewives if he hadn't been born with a 'gizmo', the sixth sense that guides him to where the easy money is. Now Toddy's gizmo has steered him to a seemingly unlimited source of pure, unadulterated illicit gold. The only problem is that his 'gizmo' has a tendency to desert him when he needs it most. An no sooner has he acquired the first sample, than Toddy's wife is dead and he himself is being stalked by a sinister man with no chin.
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A Hell of a Woman
by Jim Thompson
Young, beautiful, and fearfully abused, Mona was the kind of girl even a hard man like Dillon couldn't bring himself to use. But when Mona told him about the vicious aunt who had turned her into something little better than a prostitute--and about the money the old lady has stashed away--Dillon found it surprisingly easy to kill for her.
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After Dark, My Sweet
by Jim Thompson
William Collins is very handsome, very polite, and very friendly. He is also dangerous when aroused. Now Collins, a one-time boxer with a lethal "accident" in his past, has broken out of his fourth mental institution and met up with an affable con man and a highly arousing woman, whose plans for him include kidnapping, murder, and much, much worse.
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The Getaway
by Jim Thompson
Doc McCoy knows everything there is to know about pulling off the perfect bank job. But there are some things he has forgotten--such as a partner who is not only treacherous but insane and a wife who is still an amateur. Worst of all, McCoy has forgotten that when the crime is big and bloody enough, there is no such thing as a clean getaway.
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The Grifters
by Jim Thompson
Roy DIllon seems too handsome and well-mannered to be a professional con man. Lilly Dillon looks too young--and loves Roy a little too intensely--to be taken for his mother. Moira Langtry is getting too old to keep on living off the kindness of male strangers. And Carol Roberg seems too innocent to be acquainted with suffering.
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Pop. 1280
by Jim Thompson
Sheriff Nick Corey of Potts County, is a simple man, but when he is pushed to far he becomes a killer or makes other people do his killings.
