Jim Thompson’s 1954 novel A Hell of a Woman contains no soft-hearted sentiment. A Hell of a Woman tells the story of salesman Dolly Dillon. Mr. Dillon tries to do the right thing, but eventually bodies begin turning up.
Born in Oklahoma, Thompson wrote 29 novels. Books like The Getaway, Savage Night, The Grifters, and Killer Inside Me capture the essence of his cutthroat prose. Thompson also wrote two screenplays for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory. Thompson’s vivid descriptions are concise and memorable, but it’s his dialogue that mesmerizes.
Thompson indicated the other title for this book was ‘A Man’s Fight Against High Odds And Low Women’. The title surfaces several times in the story. However, in this tale the female folk uphold their end of the bargain. It is hard to forget the female characters Mona and Joyce in these 185 pages. This is a brutal tale about the dark side of human nature.
When Thompson died in 1977 his books were out of print.