A few days ago I went to the gym for a "bike day." I try to run three times a week and bike the other days. I don't like the bike as much, but at least I can read while I'm biking. I'd decided to bike for an hour, so I wanted something that would hold my interest for that long. I'm glad I brought Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me.
The novel is narrated by low-ranking police officer Lou Ford, who lives in a small west Texas town. Lou comes across as a slow-moving, slow-thinking type of guy that's pretty much....well, boring. He can bore you to physical pain with his never-ending supply of cliches. He's got a good job, a steady girl and a house left to him by his father. But something happens early in the novel that triggers a reaction deep inside Ford, emotions he's successfully ignored for ten years.
There's murder. Violence. Deception. Lots of it. But The Killer Inside Me is far from a typical 1950s crime thriller.
When Ford's murderous rampage begins, his slow and easy manner dispel any suspicion the locals might have, at least for awhile. Soon Ford begins to cover up murders with other murders, brilliantly framing other people for his crimes. The interest in Ford as a narrator is not so much that he's cold and calculating, not that he kills those closest to him, not that he shows almost no remorse. The interesting thing is how well Thompson has made it all so believable.
We learn early on that Ford's brother was killed in an industrial accident on a construction site. Even though Ford is a law enforcement officer, he's powerless to do anything about what he suspects as union neglect. Ford is further frustrated by the knowledge that he could have made something better of his life. He's widely read, especially in psychology and even reads in French, German and Italian, all from a library left him by his father. Ford dates a girl from "a good family" and knows he should probably marry her, but can't quite bring himself to do it. All of these details could just serve as interesting background, but Thompson makes far better use of them.
Lou Ford is a killer we'll never forget because Thompson has done a masterful job of showing us not only who he is, but who Lou Ford thinks he is and who the people in town think he is. Watching Ford's fraying threads of morality disintegrate is still jaw-dropping over fifty years after it was published. Not for nothing is The Killer Inside Me included in Horror: Another 100 Best Books.
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