Cropper's Cabin(1952)

Jim Thompson

Tommy Carver may be every inch the angry, rebellious young man his teachers and parents accuse him of being. But sometimes, there are reasons for a fury like Tommy's.

Tommy's relationship with Donna, the daughter of a man he hates almost as much as his own father, has led to more outbursts than anything else in Tommy's firecracker existence. With her unearthly beauty and a passion that rivals Tommy's own, he couldn't help but fall for her. But as everybody knows, the stories of star-crossed lovers never have happy endings -- especially not with explosive parties like these.

Cropper's Cabin is Jim Thompson's hair-raising thriller of what no writer has known better before or since -- the hardscrabble existence of small-town American lives set to blow.