A Hell of a Woman by Jim Thompson (1954)

A salesman finds that you can't always get what you want, because you don't always want it when you get it.

Mystery Review: A Hell of a Woman seems tossed off quickly and effortlessly, but is no less effective for that. Jim Thompson (1906-77) was a master of building nerve-wracking suspense, even if the protagonist was a creep that was hard to care about. Here, Frank Dillon is the usual Thompson "hero," a "hard luck" guy who hates his job if he has one, but whenever he tries to get ahead just digs himself a deeper hole. In desperation or without thinking he does things he wouldn't normally do (he has an extreme form of situational ethics), and there's usually a woman involved. Yet he doesn't trust anyone, especially women, so the reader too is unsure of people's motives, who to trust, and soon the paranoia starts setting in. Still, he thinks he's the smartest person in the room, but isn't, and pays for it when his perfect plans come apart. He drinks heavily and is capable of lying to anyone, including himself, so the reader has to separate Dillon's truth from his lies as his own narrative undermines him. Although he despises all women, he thinks if he can just find the right woman he'll be able to put it all together. But he's unable to fully form an attachment and all the women he's married (he's lost count) were tramps anyhow, not realizing that he's the common denominator in all those relationships. Somehow, unbelievably, the reader still cares about this guy, scummy as he is -- that's Thompson's genius in A Hell of a Woman. Even though you wouldn't want to have a beer with the guy the reader still wants him to get out of his mess, move on, and somehow be the better person he might be if only, if only, if only ... . But with Thompson it's always bad breaks, hard luck, and worse mistakes. Simultaneously perp and victim, here Dillon's being exploited by a company whose business is designed to exploit the poor -- and any job trying to extort money from the poor is damaging to the human psyche. Thompson adds a substrate of psychology to address the tortured psyches of his characters. Dillon thinks he's going to save Mona, the title character, a damsel in distress, but he's really hoping that Mona will save him. At one point Dillon says, "Take the most hard luck guy in the world, and he's bound to get a break once in a while." Don't count on it.  Although in Thompson's work life, humanity, and the whole crappy world are the antagonist, he often throws in a specific torturer, here the character Staples, much like Shrike from Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), and much like that novel Dillon's troubled conscience exacerbates until his mind deteriorates. A Hell of a Woman is Thompson at the top of his game.  [4★]