The Grifters (Crime Masterworks, #29) (Black Swan S.) (Mulholland Classic)

by Jim Thompson

Roy Dillon is young, good-looking and devastatingly charming. He's also a completely amoral con man. Lily, his mother, works for the mob. Moira Langtry, Roy's mistress, is always looking for the main chance, and so is Carol Roberg, the nurse brought in to look after Roy when a bad choice of mark means he has an unfortunate encounter with a baseball bat and a bad case of internal bleeding. Together they make up a perverse quadrangle of love and greed in a coruscating novel of corruption.

• ISBN10: 075285206X
• ISBN13: 9780752852065
• Publish Date: 16 October 2003 (first published 1 August 1985)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 December 2005
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion mass market paperback
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 192
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

There is a reason they call Jim Thompson the Dimestore Dostoevsky; his works really spotlight the moral dilemma his protagonists and main characters face, so I was really looking forward to reading The Grifters; I’ve seen the movie so I was interested in seen the inner thoughts of the characters. 25-year-old short con operator Roy Dillion suffers an injury when a simple con goes horribly wrong, he finds himself in hospital recovering from an internal haemorrhage. This brush with death has led him to rethink his life, thought his mother Lilly feels like Roy still owes her. She’s inattentive and manipulative while trying to care for Roy, but she is also trying to pull off a long con at the race tracks at the same time. Throw in another femme fatale; Moira, Roy’s girlfriend who also find out is also a grifter who favours the long con. The three explosive characters make for an interesting and twisted noir story, much to what we have come to expect from Jim Thompson.

I have to admit I do love Jim Thompson’s twisted plotting, he captures the pulp feel well while giving it is own flavour of surrealism. While The Grifters is not is most solid piece it does a good job at spotlighting what this author can do, with crime and with is unreliable narrating. The characters are great and they each work well together while making life difficult for each other. His is one of the few pulp authors that break into the world of serious literary while never losing sight of what he does best.

If you haven’t read a Jim Thompson book maybe this is a good place to start, it’s not as dark or gritty, they characters are great, the plot isn’t as twisted as some of his other works and the suspense is a bit watered down. Let’s just call this book ‘Jim Thompson for beginners’ it gives you everything you expect in a Thompson book, just not to the same intensity while making the book approachable and easy to read.