Review of A Hell of a Woman by Jim Thompson

 

Cover

I have had a book by Jim Thompson on my "to read" list for quiet a while now. I think 3 or 4 years at this point. I finally got around to reading one of his books. I'll be honest. I chose this book out of the 8 or so books by him that my library had because it was the shortest. I was checking out 5 books at once and would only have 21 days to read all of them. I wanted a quick read. While this book is shorter than most books these days it is still packed. Here we have a main character Frank "Dolly" Dillon. A door to door salesman for Pay-E-Zee. He has got a prick for a boss and a wife that never has dinner waiting for him when he gets home. Classic 1950s America. One day he stumbles upon an old bag of a woman prostituting her niece out. He is furious. He sells some silverwear to the old bag in exchange for "sleeping" with her niece. In reality he is devising a plan. A plan to get her out of there. He shows up to the employer of someone who is skipping out on payments and gets the money from him but marks it in his ledger and being the money for the silverwear. This lands him in some hot water. His boss, Staples, goes over his books and realizes that he has been stealing from the company for a while now and calls the cops. Dolly is now in jail. A few days pass and his "wife" pays Staples the money to get him to drop the charges. But it turns out that it isnt his wife. His wife, Joyce, left Dolly a few days ago. The payee is the niece, Mona.

Dolly finds out that the money Mona used is from her aunt's stash of around 100k in pure cash. He wants the money. He decides that he is going to set up Pete Hendrickson, the flake who he collected from. He is going to set up Pete to take the fall for the old hag's murder and Pete is going to get killed in the process.

Two murders later. The cops don't suspect a thing. Mona and Dolly have to lie low for a while and the 100k is burning a hole in Dolly's pocket. He fakes sales using the money and continues to lie low...and then his wife comes back. She is back from Kansas City. She wants to try again. She and Dolly are a happy go lucky husband and wife for a few days until she finally can't take it anymore and has to know where Dolly got the money from. Joyce tries to leave. She can't stand the lying. Dolly trying to stop her from leaving pulls a classic move from Of Mice and Men and accidentally kills her (and their unborn child) and buries her in the coal of a coal train near their apartment. Three murders under his belt now (4 including the baby).

And then Staples shows up. Staples is wise to the whole thing. He knows Dolly has got the money and gets is from him. He outsmarts him and tells him to screw. Not before giving him close to 1000 dollars. So old Dolly hits the road with Mona in tow.

He berates Mona. He yells at her and calls her a tramp. All the while he is having to lie low because Joyce's body is found and traced to him. Mona can't take it. She jumps in front of a truck and is killed. Dolly moves on.

Meanwhile Staples has started to spend the money (money from a ransom paid for when Mona was kidnapped as a child). The cops are on him. They bust him and dont believe his story about how he got the money. They charge him with the aunt's murder, Pete's murder, Mona's murder, and Dolly's suspected murder.

Dolly has since hooked up with a new lady and the story ends with a mysterious scene with Dolly, his new lady, a pair of scissors, and Dolly leaping out a window.

Really good. Thompson writes with power that catches you off guard and smacks you right in the Face. Dime Store Dostoyevsky is a fantastic nickname too.