The Kill-Off by Jim Thompson

The Kill-Off Reviews

• 
  Francesc

  Excelente novela. Muy original. Narrada en primera persona desde el punto de vista de cada uno de los personajes protagonistas que intervienen.
  Lo que hace Jim Thompson es hacer un retrato psicológico individual y colectivo de gran magnitud. A parte de lo que pueda suceder en el libro (y no digo que no sea importante), Thompson destripa las emociones profundas; los deseos reprimidos y las personalidades ocultas de una pequeña comunidad de un pueblo costero de EEUU.
  El pasado de los protagonistas acaba por salir a la luz y la venganza se convertirá en el verdadero motor de la novela, mientras el lector va haciendo sus cábalas intentando encajar todas las piezas del puzzle.
  
  
  Excellent novel. Very original. Narrated in first person from the point of view of each of the main characters involved.
  What Jim Thompson does is to do a psychological individual and collective portrait of great magnitude. Aside from what might happen in the book (and I'm not saying it's unimportant), Thompson guts out the deep emotions; the repressed desires and hidden personalities of a small community of a USA coastal town.
  The past of the protagonists comes to light and revenge will become the real motive of the novel, as the reader makes its cabals trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle.
• 
  FotisK

  Αποτελεί αναμφίλεκτο επίτευγμα να μεταφέρεις την ποίηση στον πεζό λόγο, ενώ διατηρείς γραφή μινιμαλιστική, και ο εξαιρετικός στιλίστας J. Thompson διέθετε το ταλέντο να το επιτύχει. Σε αντίθεση με τους γραφιάδες αστυνομικών που αναλώνουν την υπομονή τού αναγνώστη στις πολλές εκατοντάδες σελίδων τους, ο Thompson συνήθως χρειάζεται 200-250 σελίδες, συχνά λιγότερο, για να αναπτύξει τους χαρακτήρες και την ιστορία που έχει να διηγηθεί. Και το πράττει με μοναδικό αφηγηματικό ύφος.
  
  Δεν του έχει αποδοθεί τυχαία ο τίτλος "dime-store Dostoyevsky", αν και εγώ θα προτιμούσα τον όρο "Dark-side Dostoyevsky", δεδομένου πως υπάρχουν κάποιες ομοιότητες αλλά και σαφείς διαφορές μεταξύ τους. Ομοιότητες όσον αφορά τον τρόπο που και οι δύο αποδομούν τους ήρωές τους, τοποθετώντας τους σε ένα εχθρικό κοινωνικό περιβάλλον και καταγράφοντας τη σχάση που το τραυματικό γεγονός δημιουργεί στον ψυχικό τους κόσμο και στην επαφή με τους γύρω τους.
  
  Εκεί όμως που οι ήρωες του Ντοστογιέφσκι ως φορείς του δογματικού Χριστιανισμού του συγγραφέα έχουν εξαρχής -ή καταλήγουν με- ορθή (βλ. χριστιανική) πνευματική και ηθική υπόσταση και κάθαρση έστω υπό τη μορφή τιμωρίας, οι ήρωες του Thompson πόρρω απέχουν. Ο hardboiled συγγραφέας δεν προσφέρει καμία κάθαρση, καθότι δεν πιστεύει και δεν επιβραβεύει το δίπολο "ενοχής / τιμωρίας" για τους ήρωές του. Οι τελευταίοι εγκυμονούν σκέψεις και δράση στο σκοτάδι της ύπαρξής τους, τυφλοί απέναντι στα υπόγεια και υπόρρητα κίνητρά τους, αδυνατώντας να ενδοσκοπήσουν, έχοντας απωλέσει (αν ποτέ την είχαν) την πυξίδα που δείχνει τον ηθικό Βορρά.
  
  Κι αν τα προαναφερθέντα ορίζουν το γενικότερο πλαίσιο του έργου του Thompson, το "Ξεπάστρεμα" εξαιτίας της δομής και του ύφους του παραπέμπει σαφώς στον Χέμινγουεϊ (η μεγάλη αγάπη των noir συγγραφέων), αλλά και στον Φώκνερ του "Καθώς ψυχορραγώ".
  
  12 πρόσωπα, κάτοικοι μιας μικρής πόλης σχετίζονται αμέσως ή εμμέσως με τη δολοφονία μιας καθόλα αντιπαθητικής και μοχθηρής γυναίκας που διασπείρει κακεντρέχειες, δηλητηριάζοντας τη ζωή της πόλης. Ο καθένας από αυτούς θα μπορούσε θεωρητικά να είναι ένοχος, όχι πως έχει κάποια ιδιαίτερη σημασία για την αξία του βιβλίου αυτού που, για μένα, θα μπορούσε να έχει ξεκινήσει με την αποκάλυψη του δολοφόνου, δίχως να υστερεί σε τίποτε.
  
  Η λογοτεχνική αξία του έγκειται στον εξαιρετικό τρόπο διαχείρισης του θέματος από τον συγγραφέα. Ο καθένας εκ των 12 αφηγητών διαθέτει το δικό του ύφος, καθώς αφηγείται την ιστορία του με τη μορφή εσωτερικού μονολόγου. Είναι σαφές πως η Χάττι, η μαύρη αγράμματη υπηρέτρια δεν μπορεί να μιλήσει όπως ο μορφωμένος γιατρός. Το ίδιο ισχύει και στην περίπτωση του "τρελού" του χωριού, του οποίου η ποιητική, νεφελώδης οπτική με άγγιξε ιδιαίτερα. Ο Thompson σκιαγραφεί με εντυπωσιακό τρόπο τον ψυχισμό του αλκοολικού μεν, με προφητικές εκλάμψεις δε χαρακτήρα που διακρίνει όσα οι νουνεχείς πολίτες δεν κατορθώνουν.
  
  Και βέβαια, ο μεγάλος συγγραφέας απλά μεγαλουργεί, κάνοντας αυτό που ξέρει καλύτερα, όταν εισέρχεται στο μυαλό των διφορούμ��νων ή σκοτεινών χαρακτήρων. Εκεί το ανοίκειο γίνεται οικείο και ο αναγνώστης νιώθει την υποχρέωση να συμβιβαστεί με το αρνητικό ή τουλάχιστον να το ανεχτεί, ακόμα κι εάν του φαίνεται εκ πρώτης απεχθές. Ως προς αυτό αναδεικνύεται η τέχνη του σημαντικού αυτού συγγραφέα: στο πώς αποδίδει στιλιστικά την Κοινοτοπία του Κακού, αναγκάζοντας τον αναγνώστη να κοιτάξει για λίγη ώρα μέσα στην άβυσσο, ώστε με τη σειρά της κι αυτή να κοιτάξει εντός του.
  
  Να μια ακόμα αντιστροφή του Ντοστογιεφσκικού προτύπου, καθώς στον Thompson το σκοτεινό, το μιαρό δεν αιτιολογείται, δεν στηλιτεύεται, απλά υφίσταται, προκαλώντας μια άλλου είδους κάθαρση. Όχι εκείνης που στηρίζεται στη δικαίωση, στην τιμωρία, στην επικράτηση του θετικού, αλλά της αισθητικής, αμοραλιστικής μορφής: της αιώρησης του αναγνώστη εκτός συμβάσεων και αναστολών σε έναν υπέροχα στιλιστικό κόσμο όπου ο μόνος κυρίαρχος και Ύπατος ηθικός Αρμοστής είναι ο Συγγραφέας και η πένα του.
  
  
  https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2019/03/...
• 
  María

  Luane cree que la van a asesinar y se lo comunica a su abogado.
  Así es como comienza este libro que continua con 12 capítulos contados desde la perspectiva de cada una de las 12 personas que podrían querer asesinar a Luane. Es una novela que me ha gustado mucho por esta forma tan original de estar contada, en cada capítulo te metes en la mente de cada una de estas personas y te cuentan como ellas ven su propia vida, sus problemas, sus secretos ... Y sobre todo como cada uno de ellos ve al resto y como creen que los demás los ven a ellos.
  Esta es una historia muy oscura, muy agobiante, todas estas personas tiene una vida aparentemente normal pero realmente todos están al límite y son capaces de hacer cualquier cosa.
  Jim Thompson ha sido un gran descubrimiento, ya he leído dos libros suyos y estoy deseando continuar con el resto.
• 
  Eve Kay

  I backed toward the door. I thought, Oh, how I hate you! HOW I HATE YOU! I hate you so much that - that - ! I hate you, hate you, hate you! -- It didn't occur to me until later that I must have said what I was thinking. That I'd actually yelled it at him.
  
  I've just found my new favourite Thompson noir. Reading this story got better and better all the time. The story is constructed and built up beautifully. There is a continuous red line through it AND side stories to get you confused. Hey, I was pretty confused even at the very end but it only strenghtened my desire to read this story again.
  Best thing about the style how it was written is that every chapter is written from the perspective of another character. They all entwine together, some of them have more to tell than others but not necessarily without the reader's deductions between what they've already read and what is being read at the moment.
  This is a reading experience I'm already looking forward to, again!
• 
  Peter

  By sheer coincidence, today's Merriam-Webster "Word of the Day" (2/15/08) is whodunit ("a detective story or mystery story"). Coincidence, because just yesterday I finished reading Jim Thompson's The Kill-Off, from 1957. Thompson's novels rarely, if ever, traffic in "who done it" - instead, many of his protagonists are psychopathic killers who leave behind multiple victims in their remorseless wakes. There is little doubt over who the murderer is. And when the protagonist isn't a cold-blooded murderer, it's a con man or some other two-bit hood perpetrating petty crimes. What little mystery there is to Thompson's stories is limited to the sane and socially well-adjusted reader's wonderment over how people like those protagonists could behave so unspeakably.
  
  Which made The Kill-Off a very unexpected and pleasant surprise. Set in an unnamed, dying resort town on the Jersey shore, the story centers on Luane Devore, a middle-aged woman of the fading gentry who spends her days as a self-imposed invalid in her big house on the edge of town, endlessly gossiping on the phone and spreading vicious rumors about pretty much everyone in town. And, in doing so, giving all of them a compelling motive to murder her. Thompson makes it clear, from the very first chapter, that Luane will ultimately be murdered, but he takes his own sweet time getting around to killing her off. Instead, he slowly builds to that climax by presenting each chapter in a different character's voice, establishing each person's place in the town's rather deplorable social milieu. It's very quickly made clear that most of these people had reasons, many of them seemingly justifiable, for doing Luane in. So in introducing each of the characters in such a detailed manner, and clearly signaling Luane's impending demise, the book isn't a "whodunit" so much as a "whowilldoit." The narrative is a very interesting twist on the conventions of crime fiction, one which shows why Thompson was one of the true giants of the art.
  
  
• 
  Carla Remy

  I was reading the first couple pages, thinking, "this feels like his Pop. 1280," when I read, on the third or fourth page, "According to the last census, the population was 1,280." The two novels are not connected, and The Kill-Off is from 1957 but Pop.1280 is from 1964. Maybe if I read the very long Jim Thompson biography I'll understand the significance of this. But, overall, I didn't think this experiment in multiple perspectives was that great.
• 
  Dave

  Another dark, disturbing tale from the Duke of American noir fiction. Thompson can spin a tale like few others ever. Just be prepared for characters who are dark, nasty, disturbed, and just plain mean. Centering his story around a housebound hypochondriac recluse who delights in spreading malicious gossip, Thompson introduces a world of small resort town characters who literally hate her. Luanne Devore "had a positively fiendish talent for tossing the knife, for plunging it into exactly the right spot to send the crap flying."
  
  There's the town lawyer stuck listening to the old lady. There's the younger husband who was once rumored to be her son and for whom every job in town is drying up. There's the would-be cabaret singer- striptease who the husband fantasizes over. There's the bandleader who takes the singer on as a part of his band, the band members, he notes, didn't have enough talent to wipe a real musician's tail. There's the juvenile delinquent son of the town doctor who rants on about killing people and getting young girls hooked on dope.
  
  Cynism just drips off every page as Thompson explores these intriguing characters. Each chapter is a new viewpoint and it is a psychological portrait of all kinds of folks. This may be unlike anything else Thompson wrote in the backwards way the plot develops, but he hasn't lost his touch or his understanding of the human condition. It is hard to understand why this book isn't better known and more widely appreciated. It really is a brilliant piece of literature and perhaps one of the most literary of his works.
  
  There's a murder here, but it comes later in the story after the reader gets a chance to feel how so many people had a motive to commit the murder. There were so many that hated, but only one could have done it.
• 
  columbialion

  The most convoluted, drifting, unidentifiable, plot absent book I've ever read. Quite possibly the product of a too frequent indulgence in illicit pharmaceuticals. Brutal
• 
  Shawn

  Thompson really captured the cliche of a small town with large secrets here and he presents it in an unorthodox, engagin way. Each chapter is told from the point of view of the people affected by the central character; a reclusive small minded gossip. What makes it effective is that each "testimony" clears more motivations up.
  Some of these stink as why does a girl in a seaside New York town, despite how skittish she is, seem to speak with a southern accent? And I generally couldn't put together the motive of her boyfriend either. His story is novel, with his suspicion that his mother is his fathers black mistress, and both parents fled to cover up the fact. Which led to him not being shown motherly love and as a result is cold and calculating (thompson uses this a lot, and kudos to him setting up his miscreants with believable personal trauma, full of nasty details. that take guts). The town drunk is bizzare and clearly dealing with mental issues which most of the town tolerate as eccenticity. Each tale has connective tissue that believably binds all together and makes it more difficult to discern who actually committed the crime.
  The ending I found maybe too ambiguous. You are left with a much more narrow field of suspects but none of them know the truth entirely. You simply hear their side of the story. Sometimes when all the rats get tangled together, it's hard to discern the king. I can buy that.
• 
  Dave

  Thompson! again a fabulous book. a story with switching perspectives and voices as each character takes their turn telling the story. the story isn't a mystery about who did it- but who will as everyone seems to have a motive. Curiously enough one character the first you meet is 5 feet tall just like Carl Bigelow from "Savage Night" what is with Thompson and 5 foot men?
  it is a oft times funny and great absorbing title again. everyone read this and his other works you won't be disappointed.
• 
  Julie

  I'll admit it; as a whodunnit, this is a mediocre affair. I didn't guess who the killer was, as I usually do, because it just kind of comes out of nowhere, plot-wise.
  
  But as a snap shot of small-town life, and a glimpse at the interior lives of the apparently small-town/small-lives people who live there, this is Thompson at his best. Unlike so many popular books with alternating character narrations where every character has the exact same voice so that the reader is constantly flipping back to see just who is talking [Goon Gir1], each of the twelve narrating characters here has his or her own, very distinctive, voice.
  
  When you read one character's story, you actually hear that person's voice in your head. And of course they are rarely thinking or being what everyone else assumes they are thinking, or being. Layers. Thompson told amazingly layered, droll, violent, sexy stories despite (or perhaps because of) the constraints of 1950's and 1960's censorship.
  
  I am so glad Jim Thompson's work is finally getting the readership it deserves.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Guillermo Galvan

  The first few pages really turned me off. It's written in the very old style as if you're reading someone's journal. But it's Jim Thompson, one of my favorites, so I grudgingly stuck with it. I was further deterred because it's a story told from multiple perspectives. "What the fuck is this, goddamn Clue?" I said to myself.
  
  But I ended up getting hooked by Jim's ability to change into different characters with genuine authenticity. It was like watching someone do magic tricks. Each chapter takes you into a different character's head, and so another piece of the mystery is revealed. To be honest I hardly gave a shit about the plot. It's about some old bitch who's worried some wants to kill her. Good, fuck her, who gives a shit? The real gold is the psychological voyeurism.
  
  This book is awesome for any writers interested in character design. Keep an eye out for this lesser known pulp.
  
• 
  Daniel

  The One. The man.
  «Noche salvaje » ya comenzaba en clave de género negro, pronto derivaba a lo kafkiano y terminaba a lo Carretera Perdida de Lynch. Aquí Thompson vuelve a escribir, con la excusa o la etiqueta del noir, lo que da la gana. 12 capítulos para 12 puntos de vista de 12 personajes, a cual más cafre y solitario. Si lo firmara Carrión y lo publicara Galaxia, los blogs y los suplementos se pasarían el año hablando de «El exterminio».
• 
  Jesse

  Jim Thompson is addictive. Start reading him at your own peril (and the peril of your reading list)!
• 
  ?0?0?0

  "Now, that's better" I said. "Listen closely, because this concerns you. It's my plan for finishing you off, you and my dearly beloved father . . . I am going to take you out to some deserted place, and bind you with chains. I shall so chain you that you will be apart from each other, and yet together. Inseparable, yet touching. And you shall be stripped to your lustful hides. And in winter I shall douse you with ice-water, and in summer I shall smother you with blankets. And you shall shriek and shiver with the cold, and you shall scream and scorch with the heat. Yet you shall be voiceless and unheard.
  That will go on for seventeen years, mother. No, I'll be fair--deduct a couple of years. Then I'll bring you back here, pile you into bed together, and give you a sample of the hell that could never be hot enough for you. Set you on fire. Set the house on fire. Set the whole goddamned town on fire. Think of it, mammy! The whole population. Whole families, infants, children, mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents--all burning, all stacked together in lewd juxtaposition. And it shall come to pass, mammy. Yeah, verily. For to each thing there is season, mammy, and a time--"
  
  Ask around about Jim Thompson, and I have a lot lately, and all you'll likely hear is a variation on, "Yeah, he wrote about one or two great crime books." This is false. Case in point: "The Kill-Off".
  
  Here is another Thompson novel written in the 50's involving the usual list of plot elements, themes, and characters associated with his work: desperate people acting desperate to make it, gloomy characters not of their time and place, mentally disturbed plotters of murder and sadistic violence, incestuous relationships, small town backdrop with more dark secrets than it has paved roads, an addictive narrative that's as easy to put down as it is quitting opiates cold turkey, familial violence acted on and left unsaid, dialogue that pulses off the page, crisp prose with hardly an extra word or phrase that's not required, a desolate landscape as a setting, and on and on. As far as I'm concerned, and I still have a good number of his novels to read, "The Kill-Off" is Thompson's finest work. If you loved the mentally unhinged characters in "The Killer Inside Me" and "Pop. 1280" well then you're going to be perplexed and taken aback here when faced with Doctor Aston's young son. If it's the despair-filled mood of his characters that are still young but most assuredly are going nowhere in life and their older counterparts, already failures, well you'll have more than enough characters to dig into here. If it's the twisted relationships formed out of poverty and mental illness, this book couldn't possibly contain any more of it. If it's the narrative inventiveness of "The Killer Inside Me", again, here we have a story told from every single character we meet in the book, unfolding in a suspenseful fashion that's the reading equivalent of a master slowly twisting a knife in deeper and deeper until that unexpected ending hits and, strangely, you're wanting more. This novel has it all and then some--by using each character to narrate the story, Thompson avoids the plot getting stuck in one extreme emotion for a sustained period of time and yet he still manages to have each character's view a punishing experience. I get, I guess, why "The Killer Inside Me" is so well known and loved, but I haven't the faintest idea why "The Kill-Off" is relatively unknown. This is the king of gruelling crime fiction doing what he does best, with plenty of surprises, at the height of his literary talent, with each character not only being intriguing but also distinct and believable--there's not a hint of this being as plotted as it is. Run to your used bookstore and search for this one, you won't be disappointed if you've enjoyed the Thompson books you've already consumed. "The Kill-Off", despite its innumerable competition, may just be my favourite crime-fiction novel ever written.
• 
  Jim

  Nasty, nasty, nasty. There's something about
  Jim Thompson's writing, and certainly in his novel
  The Kill-Off, that shows us an America of people who are not comfortable in their own skin. They hook up with people as dissatisfied as they are, and before you know it, the bodies start showing up.
  
  Manduwoc is a coastal New England town that caters to vacationing city people. In this book, there are twelve chapters, each seen from the point of view of a different local character. About the only thing most of them agree on is that the aging local scandalmonger, Luane Devore, has got to go for poisoning reputations. In the end, there are three murders, though it is not perfectly clear who offed Luane.
  
  Anyone can be nasty, but Jim Thompson is also really good at it. He keeps up the reader's interest, even with all the conflicting points of view -- and that's not an easy thing to do.
• 
  Richard Schaefer

  The Kill-Off is the second Thompson novel I’ve read that employs different perspectives in each chapter (the other is The Criminal). This one is the story of a small resort town in New York and a gossipy monster of a woman who is convinced she’s going to be murdered. But it’s mostly about the various lives of the denizens of this small town, including a band leader, a jazz singer, a doctor’s sociopathic son, and a crazy man whose disparity between his voice (lofty, pretentious language) and station in life (lush who sleeps in a graveyard) is played for comic relief and reminded me of Mitchell & Webb’s Sir Digby Chicken Caesar. Now, as in the Criminal, Thompson is good at making each perspective unique, and this outing does feel more like a crime novel. Unfortunately, the sort of crime novel it most resembles is the gimmicky Agatha Christie variety; Thompson is so interested in showing off his ability to tell a story in a new way, that it seems like he forgot to craft a story worth telling. That said, it’s far from bad; it’s just not essential.
• 
  Mariano Hortal

  Publicado en
  http://lecturaylocura.com/el-extermin...
  
  Descubrí a Jim Thompson a lo grande, con su obra maestra inapelable “1280 almas” donde su terrorífico y aparentemente bobalicón sheriff Nick Corey me hizo descubrir el mal sin fisuras; el mal más allá de toda comprensión asociado a la naturaleza humana. Esa obra maestra imperecedera me recuerda una y otra vez que hay pocas experiencias como leer cualquier obra del genial autor norteamericano.
  De hecho, cada vez que leo una obra suya, el nivel sube tanto que hace parecer a los escritores actuales como niños en patios de colegio con sus mediocridades. Sí, no hace falta que diga sus nombres, son los que venden ahora; los pobres quedan “a la altura del betún” (como vulgarmente se dice) al compararlos con las obras de este coloso o los de los clásicos Hammet, Chandler, Himes, McDonald, etc.
  En esta obra el señor Thompson nos describe cada capítulo desde una perspectiva distinta, ya que utiliza un personaje diferente en cada uno de ellos. Todo comienza con la visita del abogado defensor Kossmeyer a su clienta Luane Devore, que le indica que su marido la quiere matar; el punto de vista de “Kossy” con respecto a ella no deja lugar a dudas del tipo de persona que se siente amenazada:
  “Luane se las arreglaba durante las largas horas en que Ralph estaba fuera. De hecho, también se las habría arreglado sin todo aquello, ya que no tenía ninguna enfermedad. Se lo había dicho el médico del pueblo. Y también otro médico al que hice venir de la ciudad. El médico local seguía “tratándola”, porque ella insistía en que lo hiciera, pero no estaba enferma en absoluto. Tan solo padecía autoconmiseración y egoísmo, mala intención y miedo: la necesidad de meterse con la gente desde el santuario de su cama de inválida.”
  Luane está convencida de que su marido es el que quiere matarla; Thompson nos atrapa desde las primeras líneas del segundo capítulo con los primeros pensamientos de su marido Ralph Devore:
  “Empecé a pensar en matar a Luane el primer día de la temporada de verano, que también fue el día en que abrió la sala de baile, y el día en que conocí a Danny Lee, el vocalista en la orquesta de Rags McGuire. Una mujer, por mucho que se llamara Danny. Muchas de las vocalistas femeninas hoy tienen nombres masculinos. Como Janie, la mujer de Rags, quien siempre había sido la cantante de la banda hasta que sufrió aquel terrible accidente… hasta este año, mejor dicho, porque Rags dice que en realidad no sufrió ningún accidente.”
  En apenas unas líneas presenta a otros personajes que irán apareciendo sucesivamente en los siguientes capítulos; lo fabuloso es que utiliza cada uno de ellos para realizar una caracterización ejemplar de ellos y, además, avanzar la trama; cada hilo se va uniendo con otros hasta conformar cada parche necesario para entender lo que ha sucedido al final. La caracterización es única, cada voz es personal y, cómo no, la violencia está más que presente, como en todos los libros del gran autor; solo tenemos que ver el trato de Bobbie Ashton a Myra:
  “-¡Hablo en serio, por Dios! -Le di un bofetón-. ¡Te arrancaré la cabeza a golpes! ¡Más te vale ser considerada conmigo, maldita zorra retrasada! ¡Más te vale ser cariñosa, putón de tres al cuarto! ¡Más te vale ser cariñosa y tierna conmigo, más te vale quererme…! ¡MALDITA SEA, QUE ME QUIERAS, HE DICHO! Si no, yo… yo…”
  No se andaba con tonterías; representa con tal crudeza algunas escenas que duele hasta leerlas.
  Para el final nos deja la sorpresa de un posible final abierto, en un final más postmodernista de lo que es habitual en su obra, en boca del posible asesino nos comenta…
  “Luane era un hueso muy duro de roer. Es posible que la caída escaleras abajo simplemente la dejara sin sentido y que alguien entrara después y acabara con ella de todas todas. Es posible que alguien estuviera escondido en la casa durante todo el tiempo que permanecí en su interior.
  Sería el crimen perfecto, la verdad. Esa persona podría haber cometido el asesinato, para que yo cargase con la culpa después.”
  Si alguien a quien le guste la novela negra, no ha leído a Jim Thompson, que me perdone, pero no tiene ni idea de lo que es novela negra.
  Los textos provienen de la traducción del inglés de Antonio Padilla para esta edición de “El Exterminio” de Jim Thompson para la editorial RBA
• 
  Jon

  As the back of this book denotes, this is not so much a who done it as a who will do it. The victim of the murder is alive for two-thirds of the book, though fearful of her impending murder. Through various points of view, Thompson shows that multiple people have reasons to kill the woman, a gossiper who has ruined many a reputation and life among those living in the town. Her younger husband might kill her to get her money (and also the money owed to him that she has confiscated from his work for herself), in part to run off with a new love interest. That love interest might kill her because she's not a very innocent gal and obviously wants to be able to marry her lover. The son of another local might kill her in order to steal money from her to be able to run away with a gal he has an interest in. And so on.
  
  The conceit is an original one, but alas, the characters seem here prisoners to it and to the plot that Thompson has set out. As such, the book doesn't quite live up to its full potential.
• 
  Ernie

  great on so many levels. a thrilling read.
  formally, a masterpiece. 12 chapters, each one from p.o.v. of different character, each moves narrative along, adding some twists to previous versions of same core storylines.
  contentwise, a complete view of a small town's leading citizens and its outcasts, sometimes one and the same. it's all about unbearable truth and soul-crushing lies.
  best character: the town drunk, who sees through everything and everyone.
  JT doesn't spell it all out for you, he leaves space for the reader to connect the dots.
  spare, engaging prose about sad, shocking disappointments. original characters suffering the sins of the flesh aggravated by society's hypocrisy.
• 
  Andy

  Thompson puts the pulp-crime hatchet away and writes a "Peyton Place" style soap opera about a rich gossip who crushes her neighbors in the safety of her sick bed. Everybody harbors plans to snuff her, but who carries it out? Is it the slutty big band singer, the kept gigolo handyman husband, is it the junk-sick teenage girl or the half-caste Juvenile Delinquent? Very sordid goings on in this book. A decent time waster.
• 
  Iris Pusemuckel

  Such a great book. Until the last chapter.
  It has a very unsatisfying end.
  
  Furthermore, I did not understand why he kills his daughter and her boyfriend. It's a mystery to me.
• 
  Nathaniel BB

  Having a hell of a time finding Jim Thompson books dirt cheap online and consuming them quickly and happily. This one was £3. A win in itself.
  
  But this book wasn't stellar. An interesting premise, certainly, to have each section from a distinctly different perspective. I admired how well he signposted the attendant shifts in grammar, worldview, and rhythm each time a new character entered the picture. But, let me just say, everything to do with Hattie was... lamentable. I appreciate that for the 1950s, this is a humanizing portrayal. But now, it's extremely hard to finish. Impossible to really enjoy the story because of it.
  
  Now, that said, I knew what I was signing up for reading Thompson. It's never rosy. But it is often funny, blunt, and sharp - and more often than not hypnotic and addictive. Un-put-down-able, generally. Smashed through 'The Grifters' handily last month, for example. But here it was a bit of a slog. And the ending... I appreciate the tone but I look forward to the next book, which I bet will leave a better taste in the mouth. It's fine.
• 
  Michael

  Meh. I’ve heard enough about Jim Thompson that I wanted to experience his work. First one, maybe a month ago, was underwhelming enough that I chose not to finish.
  
  This was my second, the first in a three-novel volume printed in the ‘80s, “Hard Core.” It’s a mystery in which anyone could have done it, and in the end, one of them did.
  
  Infuriatingly, he added what was essentially a postscript, saying that of it hasn’t been that person, it was surely this other person ... who could barely have been a lesser character in the book. Inscrutable.
  
  I also found annoying his habit of not completing dialogue, ending with ellipses in order to extend the plot. “You mean... ?” Cheap stuff.
  
  So why is this guy so revered? Stephen King’s favorite crime writer, the cover says. ... Hammett, Horace McCoy, and Raymond Chandler were all interior, a blurber writes. ... Leonard, L’Amour, and MacDonald were good, but Thompson was the king, the introducer says.
  
  I can only say, “Meh.”
• 
  Vel Veeter

  This is one of the longer Jim Thompson novels, which is funny because he just doesn't write long novels, clocking at about 250 pages (and in audiobook form, 7.5 hours).
  
  It's also one of the more innovated novels in terms of form and style, but also one in which I found the narrative to be a little contrived in that way. I was reading a novel narrated by a novelist not long ago, and he talks about omniscient narration being a little cowardly, and first person to be the truest. And while I agree, it gets murkier for novels like this, in which there are several different narrators. I think Faulkner nails it with As I Lay Dying, and it feels a little false note-y here by needing the different narrators to continue the story, and oddly still not go anywhere great with it. Ultimately this one is a little blah for me.
• 
  Jez

  A Thompson book I hadn't read before and damn it was good. Not what I was expecting but it was a unique experience. More a portrait of small town lives than a crime novel, each chapter is told from a new narrator's perspective.
  It has the usual Thompson themes, venality and greed, petty jealousies, wasted lives, broken human beings trying to justify themselves, his compassion for those broken and lost folks mixed with his loathing for authority and the Capitalist system, some dark and twisted psychology.
  An event happens close to the end that jarred, I guess that it was more commonplace back then, but apart from that it was great - the perspective changes are dazzling - a wonderful, twisting, unexpected, poisonous spitting of sadness and rage.
• 
  Piker7977

  You really get some distinct and different experiences out of most Thompson books. The Kill-Off doesn't disappoint. What makes this one unique is that each chapter is told from a different first person narrative. First person is hard to do, especially when you are creating voices for well over ten characters. But it's Jim Thompson. And he delivers the goods.
  
  It's about a dysfunctional town filled with bastards and hustlers who all have one thing in common: they hate an old bag named Luane Devore. From there the tension and antics unfold.
  
  It's odd and uncomfortable. Just what I was looking for.
  
• 
  Dewane VL

  My favorite narrator in movies, and in writing, is the unreliable narrator. Like Rashomon, we get different accounts of what looks to be a murder, and just about everybody had a motive. Unlike Rashomon, it happens in a seedy dying beachside tourist town.
  
  Thompson’s writing is masterful here. How he pulled off the PoV of so many different characters and make it work is beyond me. Even Marmaduke the town drunk comes across fully formed and believable. This is a book I like to reread every couple of years to remember the richness of the characters.