Wild Town

For some reason, local sheriff Lou Ford releases Bugs McKenna from jail and gets him a job at the nicest hotel in town as the house detective. Bugs can't stop wondering why Ford would do that for a stranger, one with a police record of violence, but he quickly begins to suspect that the smiling, drawling sheriff has a plan that needs a fall guy.

If you're like me and discovered Thompson through The Killer Inside Me, you'll be thrilled to find that he's plucked some of his characters from that amazing book and dropped them here. While this isn't a sequel, Lou Ford is again the creepy sheriff of a small Texas town and he is again engaged to sweet Amy and messing around with Joyce the Hooker ( her status is just slightly more elevated in show more this go-round), but the book is narrated by nervous Bugs, who just knows that somebody and everybody is out to get him.
Everything Thompson wrote oozes gritty noir. show less

Not one of his better efforts. The style is there, but the left-turn to being a straight mystery was odd, and incidentally belied the afterword's thesis about what make Thompson unique.

Date is a guess. Went to read this today (7/2/21) and was very disappointed that i had already read it! (ACK). The story of a man who made a wild cat oil fortune in texas, but broke his back when the oil gushed, so he is laid up (but tough as nails). His wife is a shady character probably waiting to kill him for the dough. Lou Ford is around as a deputy sheriff and we have a wild man, Bugs, hired by the Hotel Hanlon to protect the rich guy- but you knew it wouldn't be as simple as that. Lots of tough guy in this- great story.

Well. It was my first Jim Thompson book. I didn't like it very much though. It seemed to be... trying too hard or something.

I didn't like any of the characters and didn't care if/when any of them died. I guess it was a bit of a mystery, but since it didn't really matter to me it wasn't very engaging.

And Bugs was just annoying with his whininess and stupidity - and he was harassed all the time because...well, I don't know why but it seemed that everyone was playing him and he was the only one who was too stupid to know it.

That and some dummy criminal got to have sex with every woman in the book... yeah, uh-huh... fantasy much Mr. Thompson?

With this book I have completed all the Jim Thompson I could get my hands on. Bugs McKenna, an ex-con, gets to be a hotel detective and that's when the hell begins in this frontier oil boom town.

Deux magnifiques personnages d'idiots (vrais ou faux?) et une intrigue embrouillée à point