One of my favorite anecdotes about Sid Vicious is from "Please Kill Me," where he's singing Jim Reeves' songs, drunk in a stairwell. Punk and roots music aren't that far removed, and the Sex Pistols on paper should have been huge in the south, populated by their supposed target audience- poor, angry people who love music at a gut level, but they were just too alien for most good 'ol boys.

This is by far the best Jim Thompson novel I have read to date, having previously read "Texas by the Tail," and "The Transgressors." Where those books had their moments, they also contained some boringness. This book however is just straight through great crime fiction.

Not quite as great as I was hoping for. Who knows, maybe I'll pick it back up in a few years and it'll be the right book at the right time, finally.

I read this on a two hour plane flight just to make myself feel that much smarter.

Not knowing all the allusions made in this (until I read the appendix after), I still enjoyed this in the way a kid might enjoy a movie. After reading the appendix, I get the feeling I'll enjoy it in the way a parent does, getting all the sly jokes that are just above a child's level.