Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I should have tallied all these murders from the beginning

I'm more than halfway through JIM THOMPSON'S 1958 crime novel "THE GETAWAY" and I am wishing I had tallied the murders from the beginning.
There are so many folks knocked off in this yarn I'm beginning to lose count.
I'm a huge fan of Thompson, the crime fiction master nicknamed "The Dimestore Dostoevsky" for the literary elements he brought to the genre.
Thompson populates his tales with odd plot structures, unreliable narration and themes reminiscent of Greek tragedies.
"The Getaway" fits into that latter category.
Doc McCoy is a veteran crook who is so self-assured that nothing bothers him -- not even the two aspects of his seemingly perfect bank heist that should have served as red flags.
1. Doc's accomplice Rudy the Pieface is an untrustworthy psychopath.
2. Doc's wife Carol doesn't really seem cut out for the criminal's life on the lam -- she was a librarian before she met Doc.
Thompson takes the reader along for the wild ride following the bank robbery -- including the many murders.
I should have kept a tally. I think I am beyond just counting them on the fingers of both hands!

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