Some of his most demented characters, but also some of his weakest. Haven't run across anything else constructed like this. ( )

Another dark, disturbing tale from the Duke of American noir fiction. Thompson can spin a tale like few others ever. Just be prepared for characters who are dark, nasty, disturbed, and just plain mean. Centering his story around a housebound hypochondriac recluse who delights in spreading malicious gossip, Thompson introduces a world of small resort town characters who literally hate her. Luanne Devore "had a positively fiendish talent for tossing the knife, for plunging it into exactly the right spot to send the crap flying."

There's the town lawyer stuck listening to the old lady. There's the younger husband who was once rumored to be her son and for whom every job in town is drying up. There's the would-be cabaret singer- striptease who the husband fantasizes over. There's the bandleader who takes the singer on as a part of his band, the band members, he notes, didn't have enough talent to wipe a real musician's tail. There's the juvenile delinquent son of the town doctor who rants on about killing people and getting young girls hooked on dope.

Cynism just drips off every page as Thompson explores these intriguing characters. Each chapter is a new viewpoint and it is a psychological portrait of all kinds of folks. This may be unlike anything else Thompson wrote in the backwards way the plot develops, but he hasn't lost his touch or his understanding of the human condition. It is hard to understand why this book isn't better known and more widely appreciated. It really is a brilliant piece of literature and perhaps one of the most literary of his works.

There's a murder here, but it comes later in the story after the reader gets a chance to feel how so many people had a motive to commit the murder. There were so many that hated, but only one could have done it. ( )