The Killer Inside Me
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The Killer Inside Me is a 1952 noir novel by American writer Jim Thompson. It is one of the most original departures from noir/hardboiled fiction in American literature of the 1950s.
The story is told through the eyes of Lou Ford, a cop in a small Southern town. Ford seems to be a regular, slightly boring, normal, at times dumb and lazy small town cop with little obsessions. However, he is slowly revealed to be a deeply disturbed murderer and psychopath, cunning and ruthless.
Stating many obsessive and neurotic motives, Ford murders a prostitute and her lover, a son of a local millionaire and Big Boss, and proceeds building himself a solid alibi and framing other people for the double homicide. Soon, the local authorities begin suspecting him, and his "normal" mask of an aimiable small town cop begins to unravel.
A highly influential novel with a deeply dark and pessimistic world view.
Film adaptations
In 1976, the novel was adapted into a film of the same title, directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Stacy Keach as Lou Ford. A 2010 version written by John Curran, directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, and was released in theaters later that year.
