Every once in a while, someone asks me who my favorite author is and I always hem and haw for a bit. "It's hard," I prevaricate, "because I read so many genres and styles of book that I can't just pick one, you know?"

And then I read a Jim Thompson novel and then slap my forehead and go "Oh right. Duh."

Thompson write hard-boiled crime novels. Noire. You know what it is even without me describing it. The guy's a sexist pig, the woman is backstabbing and greedy, the cops are right on their table but they're no less corrupt, the shadows are long, the cigarettes lit, and the whiskey shots thrown back. But Thompson