Terse. Plain. Understated. This was exactly what I expected from this now-lauded noir novel. The prose and plot are lean, and in its last quarter the book becomes increasingly dark. Thompson manages to make the book laden with a feeling of growing desperation and claustrophobia.

Read it if you want to read crime fiction with a bizarre narrator who chooses odd times during the story to share facts with the reader. Though there aren't really any twists, the ending still comes across as unsettling.