Deputy sheriff Lou Ford is a popular respected person in his town. He's not fooling anyone. But sometimes he has a psychological need to torment and kill, which he does in a calculating, matter of fact sort of way. Hannibal Lecter has nothing on this character. The book creates a troubling realism looking from the killers point of view and its a whole step above Lehane's Shutter Island or Harris's Silence of the Lambs. The way that small town social judgements protect him right to the end is completely convincing. ( )

A stunning portrait of a psychopath from the psychopath's point of view. Even as the horrifying details of his "sickness" and the killing that results are narrated you somehow understand the logic of his crimes. Thompson manages to make you forget how scary this man really is. ( )

Take every sadistic urge known to man and find it here in this before- its-time 1952 crime novel. Did you ever see The Night of the Hunter?This novel has that kind of menacing quality of the movie. Troubling and more compelling by its age. ( )

Jim Thompson's rough life in small towns gives him the perfect platform to write this book. “The Killer Inside Me” is filled with enough psychological drama, creepy people, losers, and criminals to satisfy anyone who enjoys a well spun tale. The plot is complex but easy to follow allowing the reader to form attachments to characters and a stake in the outcome. This is a great book. ( )

If a book has an endorsement from Stanley Kubrick on the front and Stephen King on the back it must have something going for it. Written in the 1950s, The Killer Inside Me is recognisably set within the hardboiled detective genre but it subverts expectations by focusing on psychology rather than action.

There is a rich industrialist, a cunning union boss and a prostitute but among them Thompson drops an unusual main character: Lou Ford, a Texan deputy sheriff who is also a killer. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds.

We know from the beginning that Ford has what he calls ‘the sickness’. It has been dormant since his childhood but returns when he is sent to run a prostitute out of town. He gives her a beating but she still begins a relationship with him. Her willingness to accept his dark side leads Ford to conclude that things will soon get out of control unless he kills her.

Of course, things don’t go according to plan and further killings are necessary. With each killing Ford believes he is a step closer to being able to restart his life free of the sickness but those around him are beginning to grow suspicious.
Full review: http://www.26books.com/?p=443