FFB: THE GRIFTERS, Jim Thompson

 

I've been told for years if I like Charles Willeford, I would like Jim Thompson. Well, I liked this book a lot, but there is not an ounce of humor in it unlike the Hoke Mosley books. The writing is terrific and what a trio inhabits these pages. It begins with Roy Dillon getting clubbed in the stomach. He is a grifter, a man of mostly small cons. His mother and girlfriend form the trio and it's hard to say whose the most noirish but I am betting on Lilly, his mother. This has so much atmosphere, and good settings and great dialog, you can hardly turn the pages fast enough. La Jolla never seemed so dark to me. Like a play almost, each of these characters has their own little story and the other back away and let them tell it.