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Jim Thompson

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The Transgressors (Mulholland Classic) Kindle Edition

by Jim Thompson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.8 40 ratings

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Deputy sheriff Tom Lord knows by now that far-west Texas is the place he'll always call home. He's spent too much time in the region's small towns to adapt to another place. And that's all right with him. What's not all right is being a deputy sheriff, where if it weren't for family misfortune, he might have been a doctor instead.

Lord's got one ace-in-the-hole -- the land deed that makes him the biggest landowner in the county, just as the oil companies have started to move in.

When Tom's approached by Aaron McBride of Highlands Oil and Gas with a contract to set up pipelines on his property, he's more than happy to sign on the dotted line with barely more than a cursory glance at the paperwork -- it just might be Lord's way out of a life he never wanted in the first place. But when Lord finds out just what that contract entailed, things start to go sour for Aaron McBride -- and fast. Because in this Texas town, Lord's the law -- and there's nothing more dangerous than a cop with nothing left to lose.

Print length

247 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Mulholland Books
Publication date

July 1, 2012
File size

1364 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With many of his 29 titles still in print and film versions of The Grifters, After Dark, My Sweet, and the recent remake of The Getaway, Thompson is still a hot property more than 15 years after his death. Not only is Thompson popular with the public, he is also revered by other writers, such as James Ellroy and Stephen King, who provide introductions to two of these novels, which first appeared in 1946, 1942, and 1961, respectively.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to True Detective when he was only fourteen. Thompson eventually wrote twenty-nine novels, all but three of which were published as paperback originals.

Thompson also co-wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory). Several of his novels have been filmed by American and French directors, resulting in classic noir including The Killer Inside Me (1952), After Dark My Sweet (1955), and The Grifters (1963).

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007ME5E7Q
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mulholland Books (July 1, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 1, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1364 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 247 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,458,983 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5,123 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #8,262 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #37,778 in Suspense (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
3.8 40 ratings

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Jim Thompson

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Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to True Detectivewhen he was only fourteen. Thompson eventually wrote twenty-nine novels, all but three of which were published as paperback originals. Thompson also co-wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory). Several of his novels have been filmed by American and French directors, resulting in classic noir including The Killer Inside Me (1952), After Dark My Sweet(1955), and The Grifters (1963).

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5

40 global ratings

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Peter

Not his best by a long way

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2017

Verified Purchase

I am being generous giving this 3 stars but I am a long-time fan of Jim Thompson and have trouble ranking his books as sub-par.

In this novel, we meet Tom Lord, a man who comes from a cultured background and is an intelligent man but who due to circumstances beyond his control has not lived up to the expectations that he and others placed on him. As a result, he has had to dumb himself down to become a member of the local police force. A job that he finds dull and uninspiring. This leads him to make fun of people in a way that they are not aware that he is mocking them.

Through a series of unfortunate events, he loses his land to the oil company and ends up involved in the killing of the man who organised the land deal. This brings the shady underworld figures to town to deal with the issue.

I must admit that I did not greatly enjoy this book, the characters were uninteresting and the plot was very "un-Thompson" in its lack of depth and drama.

This is very much a novel for Jim Thompson fans only.

Helpful

Michael G.

A lesser work of the Thompson canon.

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2011

Verified Purchase

The Transgressors fails to make the grade as a novel because it contains far too many preposterous plot elements. Almost nothing that happens in this book rings true. Protagonist Tom Lord comes off as foolhardy and, at times, just plain foolish rather than as the man of breeding and intelligence he is purported to be.

A couple of the more minor characters (I'm referring here to George Carrington and Buck Harris) are described in such a way that the reader will be able to recognize them as representing flesh and blood people even though they themselves are over-the-top caricatures. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of The Transgressors' characters bear no relationship whatsoever to anyone inhabiting the real world and are, therefore, not very interesting and completely forgettable.

Even the most diehard Jim Thompson fans will have to admit this book has very little to offer.

One person found this helpful

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Nyet!

Ugh! Bad Main Character! Unbelieveable.

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

The book begins with the protagonist taking his beautiful dame out to a working oil well in remote west Texas. First, the drive out to the drilling site was a joke; the remoteness was overblown and completely unrealistic. Then, the main character was such a caricature of a typical west Texas "good ol' boy", that came off pitifully one-dimensional. Hell, I grew up with these people, and just writing realistically about the vast, untapped lode of real-life, larger-than-life characters in the west Texas "awl patch" - even a halfway decent composite - would totally eclipse what Thompson offers. (Note: My "awl field trash" bonafides are impeccable!)

Like any book, the first thousand to two-thousand words will make or break it. I held on a bit longer than that, but I couldn't get past the main character, who reminded me of a cross between Jethro Bodine, Burt Reynolds and Charles Manson.

Helpful

M. Buzalka

The Needler Inside Me

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2014

The best thing about The Transgressors is the protagonist, Tom Lord, who is a deputy sheriff in a small Texas town after failing to complete medical school due to family crises. Lord resembles a couple of earlier Thompson characters, including the similarly named Lou Ford in his masterpiece The Killer Inside Me, in that he is a man way more intelligent than the other people in town and he enjoys using that advantage by needling them, primarily through a faked countrified way of speech that is designed to humiliate those who naturally talk that way. Lord, like Ford, also has spasms of violence, though he isn't quite the cold-blooded psychopath the latter is.

The story itself is readable but unexceptional thriller stuff that won't bore a reader. Hardly Thompson's masterpiece but not negligible either.

Helpful

lazza

a well written trifling tail of west Texas misadventure...

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2014

"The Transgressors" is not, as other amazon.com reviewers have pointed out, one of the author's best works. It's not nearly as twisted as one would expect from him. But the book is a decent read. It involves a deputy in west Texas having to deal with corrupt oilmen. Murder and mayhem ensue. The plot was not predictable, and the ending was satisfying. The author's attention to detail wrt location and its inhabitants is exemplary.

Bottom line: certainly a book not to be missed by fans of the author. Recommended.

Helpful

Bryan Byrd

An Average Yarn, not Thompson's best

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2008

My first experience with Jim Thompson was a complete accident, when I picked up an audio copy of Pop. 1280 during a non-stop drive across the country. Even though Pop. 1280 had a few uneven moments, I think of it as classic Thompson, and measure everything else I read of his side by side with that seminal work.

Having said that, The Transgressors falls far short of some of his other novels, but fans of the noir thriller will still find all the elements that attract them to that genre present and accounted for. Like all genre literature, there is still a possibility that the material will rise above the constraints of the form and touch on universal themes - but The Transgressors does not make that leap. One reviewer mentioned that he thought that 'Thompson was just going through the motions', but I have to believe that working with the limited palette that Thompson did, that there were only so many times he could rise above the average and create something truly outstanding.

Either way, whether he was only going through the motions or not, The Transgressors still delivers a good yarn, slightly wandering, but satisfactory for light reading. I would suggest anyone approaching Thompson for the first time begin with his classics, such as 'The Killer Inside Me', or 'Pop. 1280', but if you, like me, find this one in a second hand store somewhere, available for small change, don't hesitate to pick it up.

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