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    Nothing More than Murder
    Unavailable
    Nothing More than Murder
    Unavailable
    Nothing More than Murder
    Audiobook5 hours

    Nothing More than Murder

    Written by Jim Thompson

    Narrated by RC Bray

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Joe Wilmot can't stand his wife Elizabeth. But he sure loves her movie theater. It's a modest establishment in a beat-down town--but Joe has the run of the place, and inside its walls, he's king. Without the theater, he'd be sunk. Without his leadership, the theater would close in a heartbeat. If it isn't the life Joe imagined for himself, at the very least, it's livable.

    Everything changes when Joe falls for the housemaid Carol, and the two can't keep it a secret from Elizabeth. Elizabeth won't leave Joe the theater unless he provides for her...but he's put all his money into the show house.

    Carol and Joe's only hope is the life insurance policies they've taken out on each other. If one of them were to be presumed dead, they'd have more than enough money to solve all their problems...

    No one knows murder better than Jim Thompson and in this incisive foray into the dark dealings of the mid-20th century movie industry, he doesn't disappoint, in the riveting story of a love triangle gone horribly wrong, and just how far one man will go to hold on to a desperate dream.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateDec 25, 2011
    ISBN9781611137354
    Unavailable
    Nothing More than Murder
    Author

    Jim Thompson

    Jim Thompson is an internationally published firearms writer, photographer, and consultant with more than five decades of experience as a serious shooter and experimenter. He purchased his first M1 in 1963. His dedication to precise historical research combined with his practical, empirical insight has yielded significant contributions to the fields of military history and weapons development. He resides in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

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    Reviews for Nothing More than Murder

    3.5/5

    48 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book really surprised me. Written in 1949 (it's old!), clocking in at just over 200 pages and costing me pittance from a discount book store, i actually enjoyed it! It's written a la pulp fiction / noir and centers around a small-town cinema operator - Joe Wilmot - and his odd love-hate relationship with his older wife Elizabeth. They run the show together but a bigger movie chain starts to move in on their turf, and both scheme to find a way out by way of insurance money! To tell more would not do justice to the twisting plot and the black comedy of the seedy US showhouse era of the 50s. And boy does the plot twist and turn, u really never know what to expect next. After reading this, now wonder all the current pulp fiction writers pay homage to Jim Thomson - he was truly a genius amongst a dying breed.
    • 3/5
      Not quite as dark and nihilistic in some ways as the other Thompson I have read, although it's hard to say why. Perhaps it's because for some reason I found myself rooting for the protagonist, Joe Wilmot, even as he sinks into a complicated murder plot. Thompson makes it clear that Wilmot takes as much advantage of everyone as he can in both his business and personal dealings, but the background story of his struggle to maintain his independent theater in a small town in the face of a threat from the owner of a large chain places him in an underdog role that draws our sympathy. All in all, the plot, while it contains more than enough threads to make this a satisfactory mystery, isn't woven together all that skillfully. It is Wilmot's first-person narrative that makes the book work and holds the reader's interest.
    • 5/5
      “Nothing More Than Murder,” first published in 1949, was Jim Thompson’s first major success and was followed in 1952 by the book most critics agree is his magnum opus (“The Killer Inside Me”). On the surface, “Nothing More Than Murder” might appear to be yet another twist on James Cain’s “Double Indemnity.” Here, the husband (Joe Wilmot) has an affair with Carol. There’s a double indemnity insurance policy on the wife (Elizabeth), who is seemingly murdered in a bizarre film editing accident. But, this is a Jim Thompson book and the basic idea of the three-sided romance is twisted in quite a different way. What if the wife accepts that the marriage has gone to hell in a hand basket and offers to step aside if she can collect the insurance money? After all, all you would need is a body somewhat resembling the wife and it doesn’t really matter where you find that body, does it?
      Moreover, this is not a simple tale of lust and greed and guilt tearing one apart (as if such a tale were ever simple). This is a Jim Thompson novel and it is a world where seemingly everyone is greedy, dirty, underhanded, and conniving. Joe Wilmot is not a basically decent guy. Make no mistake about that. Never mind the adultery or the murder conspiracy. He is in the movie theater business and he is involved in underhanded, sneaky deals to stifle any competition in his small city and to undermine the union rules. He is as cagey as a shark. And, in the end, everyone seems to put together how he has put more than one over on them. In typical Thompson fashion, the walls start closing in on Wilmot and the noose around his neck gets squeezed tighter and tighter.
    • 4/5
      This was my first Jim Thompson, and I have to admit I found it difficult. As a member of the 21st century, and a British citizen, the 1950s USA demotic, especially concerning the minutiae of running a private cinema, was at times for me opaque to the point of impenetrable. The story is told in the form of a monologue by the central character, and although every page positively reeks with the seedy atmosphere of his existence, many of his actions and motives had to be deduced from clues I had a habit of missing. I enjoyed guessing, though, and mostly I guess I guessed right, as I did manage to hold on and reach the end of the story mostly knowing (or thinking I knew) what had gone on. What's more, all of the above notwithstanding, it was still gripping enough to inspire me to have another go sometime soon.