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This book is laugh-out-loud funny, and, then, without pausing, it turns on a dime and becomes the darkest of noir.

The protagonist is Nick Corey, High Sheriff of Potts County. Nick likes his job as sheriff because he believes that he can live up to the very low expectations of the good citizens of Potts County, who would become very annoyed if he was to enforce the liquor laws and close down the whorehouse. So long, as he does virtually nothing, he figures that he has the softest gig there ever could be.

Nick presents himself to the town as a nice, back-slapping, redneck good-old-boy because anything more would upset the expectations of his neighbors. He is such a nice, simple, decent guy that no one can imagine that he is taking money from the pimps at the whorehouse or is having an affair with a married woman in the town despite him being a married man.

However, try as he might, the circles get tighter and tighter and even a nice fellow like Nick, who wants nothing more than to be left in peace, has to take some pretty desperate steps to keep everything in balance. It is here that Nick shows himself to be something more than the simple, nice, dim sheriff. Acting more by instinct than by premeditation - although premeditation must be there despite Nick's protestations to the contrary - Nick spins plots and juggles balls and virtually always comes out on top. One of the classics is his off-the-cuff strategy for beating an unbeatable challenger for the sheriff's office by firmly stating that he doesn't believe “all them stories,” knowing that with that invitation, stories would be invented before lunch.

Nick reminded me of the Gary Cole character in the short-lived, but excellent television series “American Gothic.” Cole's character was Sheriff Lucas Buck. Buck had all the charm and long-range plotting we see in Nick Corey, although Buck is pretty clearly Satan, and Nick Corey thinks he's Jesus Christ. (And the psychiatric deterioration of Nick at the end is fascinating.) I wonder if Lucas Buck was based on Nick Corey or on Lucas Ford from “The Killer Inside.”

Another character Nick Corey reminded me of was Mark Twain's Puddnhead Wilson. Wilson was the smartest guy in his small town, but he didn't keep his intelligence undercover and, naturally, the bigots and dimbulbs around him decide that he's the “pudding head.”

I was puzzled by the time setting of this story. Cars seem to be at the “horseless carriage” stage. People use horse-drawn wagons. There are phones, though, and there is a reference to the Bolsheviks possibly overturning the Czar. So, it sounds like 1918.

Another thing that modern readers might find alarming - given the narrow-mindedness of contemporary attitudes - is the blatant racism of the characters. Racially derogatory expressions and attitudes are sprinkled throughout the book. Yet, in a way, I think that Nick thinks that these attitudes are barbaric. Certainly, author Jim Thompson - a leftist himself - must have had a dim view of racism. Some of Nick's funniest ironic comments lampoon the racism of his neighbors.

This is a good book. It is also a very good listen.

Check it out.