Acclaim for Jim Thompson
“The best suspense writer going, bar none.”
—New York Times
“My favorite crime novelist—often imitated but never duplicated.”
—Stephen King
“If Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Cornell Woolrich would have joined together in some ungodly union and produced a literary offspring, Jim Thompson would be it.…His work casts a dazzling light on the human condition.”
—Washington Post
“Like Clint Eastwood’s pictures it’s the stuff for rednecks, truckers, failures, psychopaths and professors.…One of the finest American writers and the most frightening, Thompson is on best terms with the devil. Read Jim Thompson and take a tour of hell.”
—New Republic
“The master of the American groin-kick novel.”
—Vanity Fair
“The most hard-boiled of all the American writers of crime fiction.”
—Chicago Tribune
Contents
Title Page
Welcome Page
1: Doc Luther
2: Cosgrove
3
5
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10
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About the Author
Preview of The Criminal
Books by Jim Thompson
Acclaim for Jim Thompson
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright 1953 by Jim Thompson
Copyright © renewed 1981 by Alberta H. Thompson
Excerpt from The Criminal copyright © 1953 by Jim Thompson, copyright © renewed 1981 by Alberta H. Thompson
Cover design by Allison J. Warner; cover art: Getty Images
Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company
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First e-book edition: July 2012
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ISBN 978-0-316-19607-9