I just finished re-reading Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. All the hype about the new movie renewed my interest in the book and it has been such a long time since I first read it. I didn't really remember the plot, only the fact that the main character and narrator is a vicious, misogynist, psychopath. It is a brutal book about a brutal man.
The book begins with two revenge killings and other killings follow in an attempt to cover-up those first two. When I read the book the first time I read it as a straight story with a kicker of an ending. This time I remembered that what I reading were the words of a killer. How do we know what he is saying is true? He presents himself as an intellectually superior man surrounded by idiots but he makes quite a few mistakes and is finally locked up in the local jail and then a mental institution. According to him "they" have a key piece of evidence that will convict him but "they" want him to confess voluntarily and pull some psychological tricks in an attempt to make him to do so. What is really happening is that he is breaking down without any outside help. The kicker of an ending is all inside his head. The clues are there if you read carefully.
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