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Wild Town
The place is a frontier boom town where the graft gets collected more regularly than the trash. The hero is Bugs McKenna, slow-witted, hot-tempered man with manslaughter in his past and much worse in his immediate future. The much worse begins the moment McKenna gets promoted from ex-con to hotel detective without bothering to ask why. Because in Wild Town nobody does you any favors--and the price of advancement is always a little higher than what you can afford.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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1557 people want to read
About the author
Jim Thompson
160 books1,637 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
July 3, 2015
Jim Thompson has basically written a locked-room mystery in a West Texas, frontier boom town.
All the hard-boiled pieces are set. There are several femme fatales, a sheriff that seems to be brilliant and quietly manipulative, a slow-witted, hot-headed house detective, and a shabby hotel. Not my favorite Thompson, but that belittles the truth. I love all Jim Thompson's stuff. He writes from both the head and the gut. Each of his novels seem to contain a bit of Crime AND Punishment. They all seem to balance Freud with Nietzsche. Thompson is one of those novelists that for me at least proves that some of the best fiction of the 20th century was genre fiction. Wild Town seems like a modern-day Notes from the Underground. Thompson isn't just writing about crime and criminals. He is tearing apart the bones of society. He is examining the ideas and ideals of America. You can certainly read Thompson as a transgressive, crime fiction writer, but he is so much more. There is another dark river under the narrative's river and the currents and eddies of both might hydrate or drown you, but will certainly carry you into zones you haven't previously been.
All the hard-boiled pieces are set. There are several femme fatales, a sheriff that seems to be brilliant and quietly manipulative, a slow-witted, hot-headed house detective, and a shabby hotel. Not my favorite Thompson, but that belittles the truth. I love all Jim Thompson's stuff. He writes from both the head and the gut. Each of his novels seem to contain a bit of Crime AND Punishment. They all seem to balance Freud with Nietzsche. Thompson is one of those novelists that for me at least proves that some of the best fiction of the 20th century was genre fiction. Wild Town seems like a modern-day Notes from the Underground. Thompson isn't just writing about crime and criminals. He is tearing apart the bones of society. He is examining the ideas and ideals of America. You can certainly read Thompson as a transgressive, crime fiction writer, but he is so much more. There is another dark river under the narrative's river and the currents and eddies of both might hydrate or drown you, but will certainly carry you into zones you haven't previously been.
February 2, 2024
12/2018
From 1957. About an oil town in Texas, called Ragtown , because it bloomed into a town with the oil boom, because there were so many people there before there were houses they were living in three walled shacks finished with rags. But then a big hotel is built, and most of the action in this book takes place there. Probably the major Thompson theme is the sheriff or deputy who is either a dumb hick or super smart acting like a dumb hick. This is a good book, with a lively plot which comes to a satisfying conclusion. I really liked the end.
From 1957. About an oil town in Texas, called Ragtown , because it bloomed into a town with the oil boom, because there were so many people there before there were houses they were living in three walled shacks finished with rags. But then a big hotel is built, and most of the action in this book takes place there. Probably the major Thompson theme is the sheriff or deputy who is either a dumb hick or super smart acting like a dumb hick. This is a good book, with a lively plot which comes to a satisfying conclusion. I really liked the end.
June 22, 2024
Far from his best work but it's still readable and those moments of dark emotional truth still pop up once in a while, even if they don't hit quite as hard as they do elsewhere.
April 26, 2018
Φίλος μεν ο Thompson, φιλτάτη δε η αλήθεια! Με λίγα λόγια, σαφώς δεν ανήκει στα αριστουργήματά του. Ευχάριστο, αλλά πέραν αυτού, ουδέν.
January 11, 2022
Although not the main protagonist, Lou Ford, a character from two other classic Thompson novels - The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280 is nonetheless the prime mover as he sets things in motion by releasing Bugs McKenna from jail and arranging his hire as a hotel detective. Plenty of noir dealings and double dealings, but the plot and the narrative shifts are almost incomprehensible at times. The ending, where Lou Ford spends five pages describing what really happened, pretty much confirmed my sense that Thompson had lost control of the narrative and had to tell us what he'd fail to show in the course of the novel. Not Thompson's best, but it does have buried within some details best described as the Lou Ford origin story.
January 10, 2019
A ragtown (Wild Town) in the oil fields of West Texas;
Mammoth sixteen-wheeled trucks lumbered down the street toward the oilfields. The smell of white-corn whiskey drifted from doorways. There was an incessant tinkling of juke-boxes, a clang-clinking of slot machines, the rattle and smack of dice and the whirr-and-click of roulette wheels. The noise rose and fell, a chorus that faded with the passing of one doorway and picked up, in perfect tempo and tune, at the next.
Essentially a prequell to
, although they can be read separately. The only characters both books share are deputy Lou Ford and his fiancee Amy and the insideousness of Ford is not as evident in Wild Town.
Although, we do see glimpses;
He moved unhurriedly, effortlessly; he was completely unruffled and the cigar was still in his teeth. And yet he gave the impression of raging, barely controllable fury. It came from the very deliberation of his movements, perhaps: a feeling that he was building up, relishing and prolonging the savagery, forestalling the cataclysmic climax that would end his game.
4.5*
Mammoth sixteen-wheeled trucks lumbered down the street toward the oilfields. The smell of white-corn whiskey drifted from doorways. There was an incessant tinkling of juke-boxes, a clang-clinking of slot machines, the rattle and smack of dice and the whirr-and-click of roulette wheels. The noise rose and fell, a chorus that faded with the passing of one doorway and picked up, in perfect tempo and tune, at the next.
Essentially a prequell to
, although they can be read separately. The only characters both books share are deputy Lou Ford and his fiancee Amy and the insideousness of Ford is not as evident in Wild Town.Although, we do see glimpses;
He moved unhurriedly, effortlessly; he was completely unruffled and the cigar was still in his teeth. And yet he gave the impression of raging, barely controllable fury. It came from the very deliberation of his movements, perhaps: a feeling that he was building up, relishing and prolonging the savagery, forestalling the cataclysmic climax that would end his game.
4.5*
August 9, 2017
Not the best Thompson (see The Criminal for a perfectly formed noir), but still a sizzling, hot little thriller. Hard to engage with the characters here, and they are almost caricatures, drawn without the usual Thompson eye for subtle shades of colour. The plot is rather thin, but plot was never really the point of Thompson's work - it's the zingy one liners, the oppressive noir atmosphere, and his Dostoevsky like ability to draw complex, layered and morally compromised characters. Everyone in Wild Town has something to hide, but it's made pretty obvious pretty quickly what it is. Jim Thompson was incapable of writing a bad book, and this is still worth reading, just not up there with his best.
October 11, 2008
I’ve never read a bad Jim Thompson. The world he creates is so real and yet so his, you can almost smell the cheap whisky and desperation. This is another great tale of suckers, hard dames and homicide, with an ending that defies expectations to such an extent it is brilliant.
February 5, 2024
I started this without knowing
December 10, 2021
This is the eleventh Jim Thompson I've read so far, and the most exciting. Certainly the most eventful. It just might be my favorite.
November 7, 2025
Wild Town by Jim Thompson, accept no substitutes…
“one of those old-time cattle towns, the kind you see throughout West and Far West Texas. Just another wide place in a dusty road … —Then, a guy with a haywire drilling rig had moved in—a wildcatter. And he optioned a lot of leases on his guarantee to drill … —he managed to sink a well. The well blew in for three thousand barrels of high-grade paraffin-base oil a day. Overnight, the town bulged like a woman eight months gone with triplets. —just isn’t smart to put much money into boom-town property. Booms have a way of fizzling out. A lake of oil can go dry the same as any other kind of lake. —temporary—built as cheaply as possible and as quickly as possible. Shacks of wallboard and two-by-fours. Rough-planked, unfinished and unpainted sheds. Houses—and these predominated in the makeshift jungle—that were half frame and half canvas. —rag-houses”
Hanlon. “The outstanding exception to it was the fourteen-story Hanlon Hotel, built, named after, and owned in fee simple by the wildcatter who had brought in the discovery well. —all wildcatters are crazy, their insanity increasing in proportion to their success. Hanlon had been blasted out of his drilling rig by the first wild gush of oil. —the subsequent sixty-foot fall had doubtless been as injurious to his brain as it was to his body. —because his money was certain to outlast his ability to want. For the same reason he acquired a good-looking wife, marrying a gal who applied for a hostess job. —Male or female, none but the sinners sought jobs in a ragtown hotel. And Joyce—to give her name—had probably wiggled further on her back than he had traveled on foot. —Just so long as she didn’t cause talk, make him look like a damned fool. That was all he asked or expected of her. That and, of course, looking pretty, and being nice to him. Cracking a jug with him when he got the blues. Wheeling him around the hotel, now and then, so that he could see how much the goddamned thieves, his employees,were stealing from him. —She was riding a good horse, and she should have been content to stick with it for the distance. But, gradually, he became aware that she wasn’t. If he divorced her—fifty-fifty. Anyway—anyway, he thought bitterly—she probably wouldn’t go for half split. She struck him as a whole-hog player”
Lou Ford. “ The chief was West Texas “old family,” a guy named Lou Ford. For a man who was almost perpetually smiling, he was undoubtedly the most aggravating, disconcerting son-of-a-bitch of all the sons-of-bitches Hanlon had known. —“If a bitch wolf can couple with a dog and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take her to come in heat on a rainy morning?” That Ford was a grafter, he was positive. But it had been stupid to say so. These West Texans were a breed apart, prideful, easily offended, steadfast friends and the bitterest of enemies. —They had their own code of ethics, their own standards of what was right and wrong. Unbendingly intolerant of some transgressions, they blandly overlooked others that were nominally worse. —I really botched things with Ford. I should have been extra-nice to him, asked how he was feeling, asked what he thought about the weather. Complimented him on everything I could think of. Bragged up him and his stinking ancestors clear back to the days of the Spaniards. If I’d done that, if I hadn’t hedged with him, if I’d come right out in the open to begin with— … all the regular pre-boom residents of the community were down on him. They’d been swell to him when he first came here—the most likable, open-handed people he’d ever known. They should have understood that it was just business, and that every man has to look out for himself in a business deal. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t, and they would have no part of apologies or explanations.”
Bugs McKenna. “You want a straight answer, you better ask a straight question,” McKenna said roughly. “Sure, I’ve been in the pen—five years for killing a boob. And—well, to hell with it, and you too. I’m not making any apologies or asking any favors, so you can take your two-bit job and —” Hanlon liked the guy. Yeah, he actually liked this wife-beater and brig-bird, this man who had killed once, and was doubtless all primed to kill again. — the house detective lives in here—he’s subject to call at all times— “You mean—I get the job?” —McKenna’s first name was David, but he had been called Bugs for practically as far back as he could remember. It fitted the actions of the frightened child, the self-doubting, insecure youth, and the introverted, defensively offensive man. He seemed to have a positive knack for doing the right thing at the wrong time. —just nuts, people said, as bugsy as they came. He’d climb a tree to make trouble when he could stand on the ground and have peace. ….
—Mineral Wells, he drew another three days of “investigation.” He was spitting blood when he emerged from it, but it hadn’t softened him a bit. His last words to the cop who escorted him to the city limits were of a type to curl the hair on a brass monkey. And eventually he arrived at the place called Ragtown. Thirty minutes after his arrival he was in jail. It was partly his own fault, — “They throw you in jail, they figure they got to look after you. They might shoot a guy, but they won’t starve him to death.” —the man added carefully, “they’ve always played fair with me. This is my fifth time in for drunk and disorderly, and the boys have treated me real nice every time.” —there’s at least one of these laws, the chief deputy, Lou Ford, that’d just about as soon kill you as look at you. Ford’s the man, and I do mean the man. He’s got the town and the county right in his pocket, and it don’t do nothing without his say-so. The funny part about it is, he don’t look tough at all. “I don’t know how he does it; I mean, I couldn’t explain. You’d have to see him in action yourself.” — the turnkey handed him a ten-dollar bill and gestured him toward the door. “That’s from Lou Ford,” he explained. “Wants to see you, and he figured you might want to spruce up first.” “The charges against me?” “Ain’t any. Lou had ’em dropped. He’ll be out to his house when you’re ready.”
Ford’s house. “Nothing I hate worse than a fella that keeps another fella waitin’ on him.” “How about crooked cops?” said McKenna. “How do you feel about them?” “Well… which kind you mean? The jailbird kind? The kind that ain’t smart enough to stay out of the pen?” Ford grinned “You know what Confucius say, McKenna? Man with bare ass always have big mouth.” “There’s another one I like better,” Bugs said. “Many men drown in their own dung, but few die shouting for a doctor.” “Hey, now!” Ford seemed honestly delighted. —“this hotel job, I ain’t askin’ you to be anything but on the level. A good tough house dick—and I know you ain’t no coward, whatever else you been—can save trouble for me.” Bugs added hastily. “I give just as good as I get. But I won’t take any guff from anyone—and I don’t give a hoot in hell who they are either. And I won’t go around with a big possum grin on my face—”
Well Bugs now has a job. You are now acquainted with Bugs, Hanlon and Ford. The “ladies” Hanlon’s Joyce, Lou/Bugs’ Amy and then there’s the hotel maid. “Rosalie Vara, on the other hand… well, Rosie was just herself. An exceptionally pretty and nice-mannered young woman who happened to be a Negro, and who saw no reason either to flaunt or conceal the fact.”
Lots a goin’ons and shenanigans to follow… Bugs a character and then some… well with Thompson doing the writing they’re all characters. Wild Town, maybe not his best, but a good read nonetheless.
“one of those old-time cattle towns, the kind you see throughout West and Far West Texas. Just another wide place in a dusty road … —Then, a guy with a haywire drilling rig had moved in—a wildcatter. And he optioned a lot of leases on his guarantee to drill … —he managed to sink a well. The well blew in for three thousand barrels of high-grade paraffin-base oil a day. Overnight, the town bulged like a woman eight months gone with triplets. —just isn’t smart to put much money into boom-town property. Booms have a way of fizzling out. A lake of oil can go dry the same as any other kind of lake. —temporary—built as cheaply as possible and as quickly as possible. Shacks of wallboard and two-by-fours. Rough-planked, unfinished and unpainted sheds. Houses—and these predominated in the makeshift jungle—that were half frame and half canvas. —rag-houses”
Hanlon. “The outstanding exception to it was the fourteen-story Hanlon Hotel, built, named after, and owned in fee simple by the wildcatter who had brought in the discovery well. —all wildcatters are crazy, their insanity increasing in proportion to their success. Hanlon had been blasted out of his drilling rig by the first wild gush of oil. —the subsequent sixty-foot fall had doubtless been as injurious to his brain as it was to his body. —because his money was certain to outlast his ability to want. For the same reason he acquired a good-looking wife, marrying a gal who applied for a hostess job. —Male or female, none but the sinners sought jobs in a ragtown hotel. And Joyce—to give her name—had probably wiggled further on her back than he had traveled on foot. —Just so long as she didn’t cause talk, make him look like a damned fool. That was all he asked or expected of her. That and, of course, looking pretty, and being nice to him. Cracking a jug with him when he got the blues. Wheeling him around the hotel, now and then, so that he could see how much the goddamned thieves, his employees,were stealing from him. —She was riding a good horse, and she should have been content to stick with it for the distance. But, gradually, he became aware that she wasn’t. If he divorced her—fifty-fifty. Anyway—anyway, he thought bitterly—she probably wouldn’t go for half split. She struck him as a whole-hog player”
Lou Ford. “ The chief was West Texas “old family,” a guy named Lou Ford. For a man who was almost perpetually smiling, he was undoubtedly the most aggravating, disconcerting son-of-a-bitch of all the sons-of-bitches Hanlon had known. —“If a bitch wolf can couple with a dog and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take her to come in heat on a rainy morning?” That Ford was a grafter, he was positive. But it had been stupid to say so. These West Texans were a breed apart, prideful, easily offended, steadfast friends and the bitterest of enemies. —They had their own code of ethics, their own standards of what was right and wrong. Unbendingly intolerant of some transgressions, they blandly overlooked others that were nominally worse. —I really botched things with Ford. I should have been extra-nice to him, asked how he was feeling, asked what he thought about the weather. Complimented him on everything I could think of. Bragged up him and his stinking ancestors clear back to the days of the Spaniards. If I’d done that, if I hadn’t hedged with him, if I’d come right out in the open to begin with— … all the regular pre-boom residents of the community were down on him. They’d been swell to him when he first came here—the most likable, open-handed people he’d ever known. They should have understood that it was just business, and that every man has to look out for himself in a business deal. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t, and they would have no part of apologies or explanations.”
Bugs McKenna. “You want a straight answer, you better ask a straight question,” McKenna said roughly. “Sure, I’ve been in the pen—five years for killing a boob. And—well, to hell with it, and you too. I’m not making any apologies or asking any favors, so you can take your two-bit job and —” Hanlon liked the guy. Yeah, he actually liked this wife-beater and brig-bird, this man who had killed once, and was doubtless all primed to kill again. — the house detective lives in here—he’s subject to call at all times— “You mean—I get the job?” —McKenna’s first name was David, but he had been called Bugs for practically as far back as he could remember. It fitted the actions of the frightened child, the self-doubting, insecure youth, and the introverted, defensively offensive man. He seemed to have a positive knack for doing the right thing at the wrong time. —just nuts, people said, as bugsy as they came. He’d climb a tree to make trouble when he could stand on the ground and have peace. ….
—Mineral Wells, he drew another three days of “investigation.” He was spitting blood when he emerged from it, but it hadn’t softened him a bit. His last words to the cop who escorted him to the city limits were of a type to curl the hair on a brass monkey. And eventually he arrived at the place called Ragtown. Thirty minutes after his arrival he was in jail. It was partly his own fault, — “They throw you in jail, they figure they got to look after you. They might shoot a guy, but they won’t starve him to death.” —the man added carefully, “they’ve always played fair with me. This is my fifth time in for drunk and disorderly, and the boys have treated me real nice every time.” —there’s at least one of these laws, the chief deputy, Lou Ford, that’d just about as soon kill you as look at you. Ford’s the man, and I do mean the man. He’s got the town and the county right in his pocket, and it don’t do nothing without his say-so. The funny part about it is, he don’t look tough at all. “I don’t know how he does it; I mean, I couldn’t explain. You’d have to see him in action yourself.” — the turnkey handed him a ten-dollar bill and gestured him toward the door. “That’s from Lou Ford,” he explained. “Wants to see you, and he figured you might want to spruce up first.” “The charges against me?” “Ain’t any. Lou had ’em dropped. He’ll be out to his house when you’re ready.”
Ford’s house. “Nothing I hate worse than a fella that keeps another fella waitin’ on him.” “How about crooked cops?” said McKenna. “How do you feel about them?” “Well… which kind you mean? The jailbird kind? The kind that ain’t smart enough to stay out of the pen?” Ford grinned “You know what Confucius say, McKenna? Man with bare ass always have big mouth.” “There’s another one I like better,” Bugs said. “Many men drown in their own dung, but few die shouting for a doctor.” “Hey, now!” Ford seemed honestly delighted. —“this hotel job, I ain’t askin’ you to be anything but on the level. A good tough house dick—and I know you ain’t no coward, whatever else you been—can save trouble for me.” Bugs added hastily. “I give just as good as I get. But I won’t take any guff from anyone—and I don’t give a hoot in hell who they are either. And I won’t go around with a big possum grin on my face—”
Well Bugs now has a job. You are now acquainted with Bugs, Hanlon and Ford. The “ladies” Hanlon’s Joyce, Lou/Bugs’ Amy and then there’s the hotel maid. “Rosalie Vara, on the other hand… well, Rosie was just herself. An exceptionally pretty and nice-mannered young woman who happened to be a Negro, and who saw no reason either to flaunt or conceal the fact.”
Lots a goin’ons and shenanigans to follow… Bugs a character and then some… well with Thompson doing the writing they’re all characters. Wild Town, maybe not his best, but a good read nonetheless.
May 30, 2016
Perhaps not top shelf Thompson, but fans of his will enjoy this much tamer whodunit tale of murder and extortion set in and around The Hanlon hotel in a west Texas oil boom town.
Bugs McKenna, ex-cop and ex-con all rolled into one lug, is fresh out of jail and is given a hand-plucked opportunity to be the house dick at the Hanlon (that's house detective, you pervs). Things seem to be on the up and up for 'ol slow-witted, but not stupid, Mckenna... until a little bit of murder and a missing five thousand dollars threatens to unravel McKenna's relatively calm and quiet fresh start.
Then for good measure, mix that in with a cast of a few femme-fatales, an eccentric wheelchair bound millionaire, a near virginal school teacher, a roster of roustabouts in the hotel's employ, and not least of which, a county sheriff who just so happens to be Lou Ford, and suddenly Bugs is caught up in yet another no-win situation that he can't escape from.
And yes. That Lou Ford. A man who can give even the hardest of Thompson fans shivers down their spine. But Wild Town doesn't appear to exist in the same universe as The Killer Inside Me, despite a few characters making appearances here. He may, or may not be, the same Ford as depicted in Thompson's most well-known novel, but anytime Ford's around (and he seems to damn near be omnipresent here), you know that sonofabitch is always up to something.
There's not nearly the level of sex and violence here as you'll find in other works of Thompson. Don't worry though, there's still some to have. The impending sense of doom isn't as heavy here. By and large the worst thing that could happen in Wild Town is that you catch a bum murder rap, or maybe someone offs you relatively painlessly. For Thompson, that's not too bad. It's not like a descent into maddening insanity or anything like that.
Wild Town by Jim Thompson - 3 out of 5 hotel graveyard shifts.
Bugs McKenna, ex-cop and ex-con all rolled into one lug, is fresh out of jail and is given a hand-plucked opportunity to be the house dick at the Hanlon (that's house detective, you pervs). Things seem to be on the up and up for 'ol slow-witted, but not stupid, Mckenna... until a little bit of murder and a missing five thousand dollars threatens to unravel McKenna's relatively calm and quiet fresh start.
Then for good measure, mix that in with a cast of a few femme-fatales, an eccentric wheelchair bound millionaire, a near virginal school teacher, a roster of roustabouts in the hotel's employ, and not least of which, a county sheriff who just so happens to be Lou Ford, and suddenly Bugs is caught up in yet another no-win situation that he can't escape from.
And yes. That Lou Ford. A man who can give even the hardest of Thompson fans shivers down their spine. But Wild Town doesn't appear to exist in the same universe as The Killer Inside Me, despite a few characters making appearances here. He may, or may not be, the same Ford as depicted in Thompson's most well-known novel, but anytime Ford's around (and he seems to damn near be omnipresent here), you know that sonofabitch is always up to something.
There's not nearly the level of sex and violence here as you'll find in other works of Thompson. Don't worry though, there's still some to have. The impending sense of doom isn't as heavy here. By and large the worst thing that could happen in Wild Town is that you catch a bum murder rap, or maybe someone offs you relatively painlessly. For Thompson, that's not too bad. It's not like a descent into maddening insanity or anything like that.
Wild Town by Jim Thompson - 3 out of 5 hotel graveyard shifts.
October 24, 2019
I still haven't read a Jim Thompson book I found to be underwhelming, and now added to the list of works that grabbed me, is "Wild Town", a mystery set in a Texas town that went rich from oil and then never amounted to anything more than what the place is now termed, Ragtown. Lou Ford, the psychopath we accidentally fell in love with from "The Killer Inside Me" plays a key role as one of the side characters that might be in on a blackmail operation against a wife-beating, former convict who now holds court as the house dick to the one hotel in town. The hotel's owner and his dopey wife, co-workers, and Lou's girlfriend round out the supporting players in yet another dive into the lonely, mad, and mysterious world of Thompson's mind. What makes "Wild Town" work so well is the depiction of alcoholism: the horror of it is written to make it out to be just as horrifying as any plot that Lou Ford could concoct, and the passages where it hits Bugs, the house detective, the hardest are some of the most painfully true moments in any Thompson novel. The constant repeating of life being empty, grey, and somewhere lower than low add to the melancholic mood, but don't let this fool one from reading it: this is a mystery where I thought I knew the answer, only to be shown differently, and then I thought I had most of it only for another piece to show up and dissolve that notion, and this repeated until the final five pages, where most of the surprising truth is exposed, hardly correlating to any theory I'd thought of. If there's any redeemable characters here, they're still coloured with so much dirt that it's difficult to tell, but who the hell cares, the pages demanded turning and the prose was some of Thompson's best, it's hard to resist that.
May 3, 2022
In its own right, Wild Town is a decent novel; not Thompson’s best, but far from his worst. Where it suffers is in Thompson’s unfortunate decision to make it a prequel to The Killer Inside Me, one of his most beloved and best novels. By showing us deputy Lou Ford from an outside perspective (as opposed to the first person narration in Killer), he undoes much of the mystique inherent of the question: how much is Ford actually getting away with, and how much does he only THINK he’s getting away with? Wild Town presents him as a deputy who runs the town (different than what we see in Killer), everyone knows he’s on the take (different than Killer), and most people know he’s smarter than he lets on (it’s crucial to Killer that most people DON’T know this). Most damning of all, it makes Ford seem like he’s not such a bad guy. Oh boy. All this was very distracting from the book’s plot about a hotel dick who is maybe being framed for murder. He’s an interesting character, but it was hard to notice amidst the chaos of Thompson tearing down the legacy of one of his best books.
April 5, 2020
Nice pot boiler from Jim Thompson that includes murder, embezzlement, theft, blackmail and double-dealing. Most of the action takes place in the main hotel of a booming new oil town in Texas, and centers on two main characters: the laid back sheriff Lou Ford and a stubborn, hard-luck drifter Bugs McKenna. Lou arranges a job for Bugs as hotel detective, but Bugs is sure he is being manipulated into committing a crime. Is Lou as easygoing as he seems, or razor sharp? Is Bugs self-destructive or just proud, willful and stubborn? Unusually for Thompson, this has a happy ending of sorts.
January 29, 2025
Wild book. Prequel of sorts to The Killer Inside Me. A really good who-done-it type with lots of humor. Perfectly executed, especially on narrative terms.
March 19, 2021
You can find noir/crime writers who have a better eye for action, and a better sense of pacing than Jim Thompson. What you can't find (outside of perhaps Charles Willeford or Lawrence Block) is someone who can take you as deep into a very dark psyche, and illuminate its byways and least-haunted corners.
"Wild Town" is not my favorite book by Jim Thompson, nor do I think it ranks near the top for most of his hardcore fans (which I'm not). But it is a book that, like all of his better works, gets under your skin and leaves you feeling chilled, haunted and experiencing a kind of forlornness that we tend not to associate with pulp paperbacks.
"Wild Town" opens with David "Bugs" McKenna blowing into Ragtown, Texas like a bad wind. Bugs is a drifter whose life has mostly been one hard break after another, and as we get to know him better (or think we do), we see that he brings a lot of the trouble upon himself. He's a mass of unexamined contradictions, a petty criminal who adheres to a strong ethical code, a man who can be calculating and cruel with women and yet at times becomes as shy and tongue-tied in their presence as a school boy. He is, like all of Jim Thompson's characters, a real three-dimensional person.
Bugs gets a break from a local lawman who lets him stay in town despite his unsavory past, and then he gets another break from a wheelchair-bound oil tycoon with a young wife, who hires him to work in his hotel as a private detective. Somebody in the hotel dies, perhaps by suicide, maybe murder, and as suspicions gather, all of the story's characters- sheriff, oilman, young trophy wife, house dick- cross paths and vie to escape blame and pin it on someone else.
The read drags in places, as Thompson is given to digressions, and the ending is a bit of cheat (the culprit Thompson finally choses is a copout, I think), but in terms of tone, atmosphere, and characterization, it's a hard act to follow. Recommended.
"Wild Town" is not my favorite book by Jim Thompson, nor do I think it ranks near the top for most of his hardcore fans (which I'm not). But it is a book that, like all of his better works, gets under your skin and leaves you feeling chilled, haunted and experiencing a kind of forlornness that we tend not to associate with pulp paperbacks.
"Wild Town" opens with David "Bugs" McKenna blowing into Ragtown, Texas like a bad wind. Bugs is a drifter whose life has mostly been one hard break after another, and as we get to know him better (or think we do), we see that he brings a lot of the trouble upon himself. He's a mass of unexamined contradictions, a petty criminal who adheres to a strong ethical code, a man who can be calculating and cruel with women and yet at times becomes as shy and tongue-tied in their presence as a school boy. He is, like all of Jim Thompson's characters, a real three-dimensional person.
Bugs gets a break from a local lawman who lets him stay in town despite his unsavory past, and then he gets another break from a wheelchair-bound oil tycoon with a young wife, who hires him to work in his hotel as a private detective. Somebody in the hotel dies, perhaps by suicide, maybe murder, and as suspicions gather, all of the story's characters- sheriff, oilman, young trophy wife, house dick- cross paths and vie to escape blame and pin it on someone else.
The read drags in places, as Thompson is given to digressions, and the ending is a bit of cheat (the culprit Thompson finally choses is a copout, I think), but in terms of tone, atmosphere, and characterization, it's a hard act to follow. Recommended.
January 9, 2020
The Year of Jim Thompson begins with what according to GoodReads is his most popular book that I have yet to read: Wild Town. While it had some bumps, it was good and reminded me of how much I love Thompson’s work, especially after the two I read last year were too vulgar (King Blood) and too dull (Now and On Earth).
This is classic Thompson with a twist: a locked room mystery that hooks the prototypical Thompson sucker in a bind with the prototypical Thompson puppeteer (Lew Ford from The Killer Inside Me, who is, as far as I know, the only character Thompson recycled). What you have here is basically if Knives Out took place in 30s Texas, and was written by a drunk, potentially homicidal nihilist.
The mystery itself is interesting enough, I suppose although the twist, while fun, didn’t surprise me. But one doesn’t read Thompson books for the mysteries. One reads them for the bleakness, the manipulation and metaphysics filtered through the lens of a lower class southwestern American. Thompson has the “dimestore Dostoevsky” label for that reason.
While this isn’t the most existential of his novels, one can feel how he effectively brings the weight of his disturbing universe on poor Bugs McKenna, a man who trouble seems to find in part because he can’t help himself. I was waiting and waiting for poor Bugs to catch his break, and I won’t spoil whether or not he does, but Thompson’s ability to get into the heads of the men he writes and breaks down trying to find salvation in a merciless world is a skill I have yet to see another writer possess.
This isn’t top shelf Thompson: the middle is too messy and plot is not his thing. But it is a good endeavor by his lofty standards and a great start to the Year of Jim Thompson.
This is classic Thompson with a twist: a locked room mystery that hooks the prototypical Thompson sucker in a bind with the prototypical Thompson puppeteer (Lew Ford from The Killer Inside Me, who is, as far as I know, the only character Thompson recycled). What you have here is basically if Knives Out took place in 30s Texas, and was written by a drunk, potentially homicidal nihilist.
The mystery itself is interesting enough, I suppose although the twist, while fun, didn’t surprise me. But one doesn’t read Thompson books for the mysteries. One reads them for the bleakness, the manipulation and metaphysics filtered through the lens of a lower class southwestern American. Thompson has the “dimestore Dostoevsky” label for that reason.
While this isn’t the most existential of his novels, one can feel how he effectively brings the weight of his disturbing universe on poor Bugs McKenna, a man who trouble seems to find in part because he can’t help himself. I was waiting and waiting for poor Bugs to catch his break, and I won’t spoil whether or not he does, but Thompson’s ability to get into the heads of the men he writes and breaks down trying to find salvation in a merciless world is a skill I have yet to see another writer possess.
This isn’t top shelf Thompson: the middle is too messy and plot is not his thing. But it is a good endeavor by his lofty standards and a great start to the Year of Jim Thompson.
December 16, 2019
Bugs McKenna has a short fuse and knack for finding trouble. Once found, the results, usually violent, make him up and go to a new place looking for a fair shake. That is how he wound up in Ragtown, Texas working as a hotel dick for a wildcat oilman. There is a lot to challenge his quick temper at the job including the boss's wife (wheet whew), a couple of middle-aged bellboys who like to wail on each other, an alcoholic hotel manager who does his job while on a bender, a spicy maid name Rosie, a crooked deputy sheriff named Lou Ford (yes, THE Lou Ford), and Ford's fee-an-say Amy Standish; hubba hubba.
In one way, shape, or form, it seems like all of these folks are out to make Bugs's life miserable. However, a couple are trying to frame him for murder and blackmail which raises the stakes and plays on his shady past and violent reputation.
While not the best of Thompson's work, Wild Town does have a few good characters. The best illustrate quick tempers, mental illness, and troubles with booze. While these are the most compelling parts of the book, they are also a little sad as I have a suspicion Thompson may have been writing from personal experience.
Wild Town is for the Thompson fan rather than the neophyte.
In one way, shape, or form, it seems like all of these folks are out to make Bugs's life miserable. However, a couple are trying to frame him for murder and blackmail which raises the stakes and plays on his shady past and violent reputation.
While not the best of Thompson's work, Wild Town does have a few good characters. The best illustrate quick tempers, mental illness, and troubles with booze. While these are the most compelling parts of the book, they are also a little sad as I have a suspicion Thompson may have been writing from personal experience.
Wild Town is for the Thompson fan rather than the neophyte.
August 15, 2018
Detective per necessità
Bugs ha un passato travagliato, tra botte alla moglie, poliziotti uccisi e prigione, prigione e ancora prigione.
Agli occhi del mondo, le sue ragioni non importano, non fanno differenza.
Eppure Bugs ha un codice morale in grado di renderlo migliore di molti ex detenuti, ed è questo che intuisce Lou Ford, vice sceriffo dalla personalità complessa, quando decide di dargli il lavoro di Detective di un hotel.
Godibile, ma un Thompson meno imprevedibile del solito, soprattutto nel finale, solitamente un suo punto di forza.
Bugs ha un passato travagliato, tra botte alla moglie, poliziotti uccisi e prigione, prigione e ancora prigione.
Agli occhi del mondo, le sue ragioni non importano, non fanno differenza.
Eppure Bugs ha un codice morale in grado di renderlo migliore di molti ex detenuti, ed è questo che intuisce Lou Ford, vice sceriffo dalla personalità complessa, quando decide di dargli il lavoro di Detective di un hotel.
Godibile, ma un Thompson meno imprevedibile del solito, soprattutto nel finale, solitamente un suo punto di forza.
May 26, 2011
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 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. 4.5 stars
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 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. 4.5 stars
December 27, 2025
Another Thompson set in a big city hotel, this one would feel almost cozily familiar except for its strangest feature. Thompson reinvents arguably his best character by bringing back Lou Ford — or at least his name — and his “girlfriend“ Amy Standish. Playing with the expectations of any reader familiar with THE KILLER INSIDE ME, the author inverts those expectations into a weirdly distorted and surprising mirror. The characters become actors in new roles. Otherwise it’s an average Thompson novel, though not as dark as most.
April 24, 2013
I suppose this is sort of a prequel to "The Killer Inside Me." Sheriff Lou Ford appears here at his manipulative best -- before the cracks started to appear in his armour. He uses school teacher Amy as a pawn in his plans and you just fear for how he'll treat her down the road. I enjoyed this book and seeing a functioning sociopath at work.
May 6, 2025
Rasputin Inn Express
Having grown up during the time we were all force-fed the Hollywood lessons of 70s TV, I took grave offense at the Columbo ending.
But I'll never stop being hypnotized by hotel-keeper rasputinades. And I enjoyed that stuff thoroughly.
Having grown up during the time we were all force-fed the Hollywood lessons of 70s TV, I took grave offense at the Columbo ending.
But I'll never stop being hypnotized by hotel-keeper rasputinades. And I enjoyed that stuff thoroughly.
July 17, 2017
Uninspiring protagonist but neat plot and hey, Lou Ford's in it.
February 7, 2023
Wild Town (1957) starts out with one of Thompson’s trademarked bizarro characters, Bugs McKenna, a five-time loser who cannot do anything right to save his life. McKenna “The guy was just nuts, people said, as bugsy as they came. He couldn’t take a joke. He didn’t want to be friendly. He’d climb a tree to make trouble when he could stand on the ground and have peace. That’s what they said about him, the man he eventually became. And it was reasonably descriptive of that scowling, sullen, short-tempered man.” McKenna lost his job in the aircraft factory when he insisted on embarrassing the chief engineer’s wife. He lost his role as a military police officer when he shot a general in the hip and refused to apologize. He did full time in prison because he did not grovel to the parole board. Upon getting out, he managed to get in a scrape in every town he set foot in. Seemed like even breathing was a mistake for McKenna. He couldn’t take much more and drifted from town to town. When he came to Ragtown, a west Texas oil boom town, he instigated the situation by challenging the sheriff in the bus station washroom.
And that’s when McKenna meets Lou Ford. Yes, that Lou Ford. Anyone who has read any Jim Thompson knows Lou Ford, his psychotic-deranged deputy sheriff who appears on the surface to be Gomer Pyle, but is much more, much more, underneath the surface. And, tell the truth, that’s the oddest thing about Wild Town. Five years after he published Killer Inside Me (1952) and with 12 novels in between Killer and Wild Town, Thompson reprises the characters of Lou Ford and Amy Standish in a sort-of prequel, but not a prequel. It is as if Thompson did a Twilight Zone twist and put these two characters in a time and dimension warp because they are Lou Ford, mild-mannered deputy who does not need to carry a gun, and innocent little Amy Standish, but then again they are not the same. For one thing, Amy is engaged to Lou, but dates McKenna. Lou abuses Amy here, but she is sort of okay with that. But then again, she falls for loser McKenna. Later in his career, Thompson created Nick Cory in Pop. 1280, who seemed like a Lou Ford character, but at least had a different name and was not engaged to Amy Standish. It is hard to know if Thompson fell in love with these characters or just got lazy and shoehorned them in.
The plot of Wild Town revolves around a hotel in this boomtown, a former wildcatter, now a hotel owner, and the barmaid he took as his wife, Joyce, knowing she was wild and untamed, but realizing that he was stuck in a wheelchair and hoping she could be discreet. You know McKenna is somehow going to come between them, particularly when Ford appoints McKenna, the ex-con loser, as the hotel detective.
You wish that the novel would stay focused on the triangle between these three, but it seems to be a five-pointed triangle or pentagram involving Ford and Amy too. You also wish as a reader Ford was not so laid-back and easygoing and more sinister, particularly when investigating the suicide-not suicide of a hotel employee.
And that’s when McKenna meets Lou Ford. Yes, that Lou Ford. Anyone who has read any Jim Thompson knows Lou Ford, his psychotic-deranged deputy sheriff who appears on the surface to be Gomer Pyle, but is much more, much more, underneath the surface. And, tell the truth, that’s the oddest thing about Wild Town. Five years after he published Killer Inside Me (1952) and with 12 novels in between Killer and Wild Town, Thompson reprises the characters of Lou Ford and Amy Standish in a sort-of prequel, but not a prequel. It is as if Thompson did a Twilight Zone twist and put these two characters in a time and dimension warp because they are Lou Ford, mild-mannered deputy who does not need to carry a gun, and innocent little Amy Standish, but then again they are not the same. For one thing, Amy is engaged to Lou, but dates McKenna. Lou abuses Amy here, but she is sort of okay with that. But then again, she falls for loser McKenna. Later in his career, Thompson created Nick Cory in Pop. 1280, who seemed like a Lou Ford character, but at least had a different name and was not engaged to Amy Standish. It is hard to know if Thompson fell in love with these characters or just got lazy and shoehorned them in.
The plot of Wild Town revolves around a hotel in this boomtown, a former wildcatter, now a hotel owner, and the barmaid he took as his wife, Joyce, knowing she was wild and untamed, but realizing that he was stuck in a wheelchair and hoping she could be discreet. You know McKenna is somehow going to come between them, particularly when Ford appoints McKenna, the ex-con loser, as the hotel detective.
You wish that the novel would stay focused on the triangle between these three, but it seems to be a five-pointed triangle or pentagram involving Ford and Amy too. You also wish as a reader Ford was not so laid-back and easygoing and more sinister, particularly when investigating the suicide-not suicide of a hotel employee.
September 5, 2018
Jim Thompson is one of America's best known "crime writers," though it was not until after his death that he gained that status. "Wild Town" is one of the last books of his most creative period, the 1950s. It combines much of what Thompson knew from his own life, even though it is not autobiographical in any real sense: small western towns run by shady law men, hotels infested with minor crime, oil money and its influence. Usually, Thompson does not write mystery stories, so it is a bit surprising that this one is a mystery story. What makes it surprising is that Thompson does not use the typical mystery story motifs and plotting, so that the mystery of who killed hotel accountant Dudley is somewhat out of focus. Instead, the novel focuses on the character of David "Bugs" McKenna, a man who has nothing but good intentions and still ends up on the wrong side of everything. The local deputy sheriff, the terrifying Lou Ford from "The Killer Inside Me," has arranged to have McKenna hired as the hotel detective at the town's one Hotel, owned by the oil man who built the town, Mike Hanlon, paraplegic from an oil explosion, and his once-beautiful now alcoholic and depressed wife. McKenna is wary of Ford's reason for having him hired, but McKenna sees this as his last opportunity to turn his life around and make good. The way the plot works, the Dudley murder, which McKenna accidentally hastens, is a threat to McKenna's chance to make right. Feeling himself manipulated and abused again, McKenna desperately tries to gain control of the situation. This becomes the rationale for solving the murder, rather than the typical need for justice or revenge.
Thompson's writing is brisk, drawing in the reader with apt phrasing and keen insight into the psychologies of his characters. Thompson also uses a surprising number of modernist tricks in his writing, such as breaking story chronology by zipping forward and backward, shifting point of view, and using hefty amounts of interior monologue. None of this gets in the way of the reader's desire to get the story. Fortunately, Thompson has no interest in being "artsy" about what he does or to flaunt the ways he is violating novelistic conventions. The one complaint I have about the novel is the ending, which is a Jim Thompson slightly sideways from normal means of gathering the suspects and explaining everything in heavy exposition (in this case, having Lou Ford explain it all to a semi-comotose Mike Hanlon at the hospital). Still, this is a good read for those who like the dark psychology and prefer that a novel not follow genre clichés.
Thompson's writing is brisk, drawing in the reader with apt phrasing and keen insight into the psychologies of his characters. Thompson also uses a surprising number of modernist tricks in his writing, such as breaking story chronology by zipping forward and backward, shifting point of view, and using hefty amounts of interior monologue. None of this gets in the way of the reader's desire to get the story. Fortunately, Thompson has no interest in being "artsy" about what he does or to flaunt the ways he is violating novelistic conventions. The one complaint I have about the novel is the ending, which is a Jim Thompson slightly sideways from normal means of gathering the suspects and explaining everything in heavy exposition (in this case, having Lou Ford explain it all to a semi-comotose Mike Hanlon at the hospital). Still, this is a good read for those who like the dark psychology and prefer that a novel not follow genre clichés.
November 13, 2024
Bugs McKenna finds himself in the Wild Town in question, getting himself into trouble from the off. Again. He's fresh out of prison and can't seem to fathom why all of his decisions are terrible. He's clearly very handsome and has a certain alure. His mind is dull and his temper quick.
With the help of the man who arrested him, he ends up with a job working nights as hotel security in a place owned by the richest man in town, a wheelchair-bound oil tycoon. The hotel is populated by an array of odd characters who each have a part to play a part in the tale that unfolds.
Bugs gets himself into trouble when he's involved in the death of the house accountant who falls out of the window. Thing is, blackmail letters suggest that there was someone in the room who witnessed what happened and is now turning the screw. Bugs's guilt and obesssion overwhelms him, though Crime and Punishment this really isn't, and he's on an accelerating spiral of decline from that point on.
Along the way he has several enounters with attractive women and manages to sleep with (and satisfy) them all. His love for the fiancee of the local law is all-encapsulating, and is all the more unrealistic for its intensity.
The plot is engaging and there's plenty to like. I had no more idea of what was really going on than poor old Bugs, whose thought processes we get snarled up in and whose mistakes are underlined when the author jumps in with pointers to swirl up the tension.
Something about the characters and the narration style don't quite work for me. It's populated by caracatures and out-of-place comments, feeling like a pastiche of B-movies that was put together in a rush.
That's not to say there's nothing to like. Bugs is easy to get along with and there are some cracking set pieces and quips.
This one's good, if a little dated and scattergun. Close, but no cigar.
With the help of the man who arrested him, he ends up with a job working nights as hotel security in a place owned by the richest man in town, a wheelchair-bound oil tycoon. The hotel is populated by an array of odd characters who each have a part to play a part in the tale that unfolds.
Bugs gets himself into trouble when he's involved in the death of the house accountant who falls out of the window. Thing is, blackmail letters suggest that there was someone in the room who witnessed what happened and is now turning the screw. Bugs's guilt and obesssion overwhelms him, though Crime and Punishment this really isn't, and he's on an accelerating spiral of decline from that point on.
Along the way he has several enounters with attractive women and manages to sleep with (and satisfy) them all. His love for the fiancee of the local law is all-encapsulating, and is all the more unrealistic for its intensity.
The plot is engaging and there's plenty to like. I had no more idea of what was really going on than poor old Bugs, whose thought processes we get snarled up in and whose mistakes are underlined when the author jumps in with pointers to swirl up the tension.
Something about the characters and the narration style don't quite work for me. It's populated by caracatures and out-of-place comments, feeling like a pastiche of B-movies that was put together in a rush.
That's not to say there's nothing to like. Bugs is easy to get along with and there are some cracking set pieces and quips.
This one's good, if a little dated and scattergun. Close, but no cigar.
May 22, 2018
Perhaps I should've picked The Killer Inside Me for my first read of a Jim Thompson novel because this one just didn't work for me, though I can see why he's considered a fine writer. It's okay but not brilliant, not dark or gritty enough but lacking the wit and humour of, for e.g. Joe Lansdale's Hap & Leonard.
Thompson's characters are an unsympathetic bunch, in particular "Bugs" McKenna, naive and slow-witted house detective in a West Texas hotel (think better-looking Gomer Pyle) and the ludicrous women- femme fatale, nice girl no better than she should be, dutiful chambermaid- who buzz around (and use) him, in this tale of murder, blackmail and corruption, written very obviously by a male author for a male readership.
I lost interest in the actual story (either I wasn't paying close enough attention or it simply doesn't hang together) and foolish Bugs annoyed me too much to care what happened to him, so unbelievably stupid and self-pitying, with a macho attitude to women very much of its time but no longer tolerable. There's a bit toward the end when one of the characters actually sums up the entire plot for the benefit of confused readers! To be fair, the twist wasn't exactly as I'd figured it out so that was a surprise. By far the stand-out character is Lou Ford, corrupt but oh-so-interesting police chief and all-round fixer with a finger in every pie, legal and otherwise. Ford features again in The Killer Inside Me so that's my next foray into Thompson's work, hopefully something altogether darker, proper noir rather than this lightweight novel.
Thompson's characters are an unsympathetic bunch, in particular "Bugs" McKenna, naive and slow-witted house detective in a West Texas hotel (think better-looking Gomer Pyle) and the ludicrous women- femme fatale, nice girl no better than she should be, dutiful chambermaid- who buzz around (and use) him, in this tale of murder, blackmail and corruption, written very obviously by a male author for a male readership.
I lost interest in the actual story (either I wasn't paying close enough attention or it simply doesn't hang together) and foolish Bugs annoyed me too much to care what happened to him, so unbelievably stupid and self-pitying, with a macho attitude to women very much of its time but no longer tolerable. There's a bit toward the end when one of the characters actually sums up the entire plot for the benefit of confused readers! To be fair, the twist wasn't exactly as I'd figured it out so that was a surprise. By far the stand-out character is Lou Ford, corrupt but oh-so-interesting police chief and all-round fixer with a finger in every pie, legal and otherwise. Ford features again in The Killer Inside Me so that's my next foray into Thompson's work, hopefully something altogether darker, proper noir rather than this lightweight novel.
April 27, 2025
Wild Town has all the requisite Jim Thompson pieces and parts: a strong-armed and hard luck stranger, Bugs McKenna, comes to town (a Texas oil boomtown named Ragtown), hoping to escape his past and find semi-honest work. Or, short of that, work that won’t lead him back to a jail cell. He finds a job at the Hanlon Hotel, but soon realizes he’s living in a snakepit of graft, embezzlement, murder, and shadows. Thompson takes great care to focus on the inner workings of the hotel, and the callused wildcat lives that inhabit an oil town. McKenna is quickly pulled between the wants and whims of Ragtown’s richest man, Mike Hanlon, and the lawman in-name-only, Lou Ford, all while trying to keep his job. It’s a Jim Thompson story so we know it’ll be bleak and savage as it careens toward its conclusion, but atypically, Wild Town ends with McKenna’s arrow pointing up leading him to better days while the bloody wreckage of his time in Ragtown is in the rear view. There’s no shame in a happy ending, and the joys of Thompson novels are always his commitments to the noir pillars of race, class, and systemic corruption. But we’re not here for happy; we want Thompson to gleefully take us to hell, and by choosing not to Wild Town loses a bit of its soul.
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