Jim Thompson must have had noir in his veins instead of red blood cells. This dark first-person story has the reader inhabiting the mind of a killer in way that most authors can't even come close to matching. It's disturbing, chilling and one of the best pieces of crime fiction I've ever read. 
 Lou Ford is a small-town sheriff's deputy in West Texas. He appears to be just a good natured, not-to-bright, good-ole-boy who usually speaks in a series of cliches to the point of annoying or boring whoever he's talking to. But Lou's persona is all a mask to hide his true self and to keep what he thinks of as 'his sickness' in check. 
 When Lou is dispatched to give a warning to a call-girl named Joyce, it escalates into a confrontation that unleashes Lou's sadistic side, and he's shocked to discover that Joyce is a willing partner. Letting his darker impulses out of the box soon leads Lou to more violence, and then a lengthy cat-and-mouse game with the local power structure as he covers up his crimes with a mixture of his dimwitted persona and even more bloodshed. 
 Reading this is a really odd experience. At times, you find yourself rooting for Lou to get away with everything he's done, but at other times you want to scream at the other characters, "Run! He's freaking crazier than a shithouse rat! Get out of there before he murders you all!" 
 And I was both horrified and amused at the malicious joy that Lou takes in 'needling' people under the guise of playing the fool that can't stop running his mouth. He's got a knack for annoying and insulting people while he pretends he doesn't realize what he's doing. That's just one of the many ways that evil Lou has of getting under your skin.