The Nothing Man(1954)

Jim Thompson

"If Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich could have joined together in some ungodly union and produced a literary offspring, Jim Thompson would be it. " --Washington Post

Clinton Brown is smart, good-looking, and the best rewrite man on the Pacific City Courier. The wife he divorced is still in love with him, as is the alluring and well-heeled widow who will do anything to make him happy. But Brown is missing something, and without that one thing there's no possibility of happiness--no possibility of anything but knocking back the booze and punishing anyone foolish enough to try to take away his loneliness. What Clinton Brown lacks may be enough to make him murder.

Is Brown a killer or the victim of a sadistic frame-up? And if he's innocent, why is he so intent on being caught? Deviously plotted, fearfully acquainted with the psychology of rage and guilt, The Nothing Man is further proof of Jim Thompson's mastery of the crime genre.