Jim Thompson

A HELL OF A WOMAN is Jim Thompson's version of an American CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. In a novel completely devoid of sentiment, 'Dolly' Dillon, a door-to-door salesman, goes about the appalling business of murder without conscience, without remorse and without any hope of redemption, because of a woman . . .

A Hell of a Woman

Frank "Dolly" Dillon has a job he hates, working sales and collections for Pay-E-Zee Stores, a wife named Joyce he can't stand, and an account balance that barely allows him to pay the bills each month. Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he has, Dolly crosses paths with a beautiful young woman named Mona Farrell. Mona's being forced by her aunt to do things she doesn't like, with men she doesn't know--she wants out, any way she can get it. And to a man who wants nothing of what he has, Mona sure looks like something he actually does. Soon Dolly and Mona find themselves involved in a scheme of robbery, murder and mayhem that makes Dolly's blood run cold. As Dolly's plans begin to unravel, his mind soon follows. In A HELL OF A WOMAN, Jim Thompson offers another arresting portrait of a deviant mind, in an ambitious crime novel that ranks among his best work.

Maurice FitzGerald

'A blisteringly imaginative crime novelist . . . violent, amoral, terse and fast-moving . . . a classic American novelist' Kirkus Reviews A HELL OF A WOMAN is Jim Thompson's version of an American CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. In a novel completely devoid of sentiment, 'Dolly' Dillon, a door-to-door salesman, goes about the appalling business of murder without conscience, without remorse and without any hope of redemption, because of a woman . . .