The Getaway

Jim Thompson

Hachette+ORM, Dec 25, 2011 - Fiction - 214 pages

The classic heist thriller from “the master of the American groin-kick novel”—the basis for the movie starring Steve McQueen (Vanity Fair).

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc’s long criminal career, his shot doesn’t hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn’t complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.

The Getaway is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson’s novel set the bar for every heist story that followed—but as Thompson’s proved time and again, nobody’s ever done it better than the master.

Praise for Jim Thompson

“The best suspense writer going, bar none.” —The New York Times

“My favorite crime novelist—often imitated but never duplicated.” —Stephen King

“My man in crime fiction.” —Jo Nesbø

“If Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Cornell Woolrich would have joined together in some ungodly union and produced a literary offspring, Jim Thompson would be it . . . His work casts a dazzling light on the human condition.” —The Washington Post

About the author

James Meyers Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to True Detective when he was only fourteen. Thompson eventually wrote twenty-nine novels, all but three of which were published as paperback originals. Thompson also wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films "The Killing" and "Paths of Glory"). An outstanding crime writer, the world of his fiction is rife with violence and corruption. In examining the underbelly of human experience and American society in particular, Thompson's work at its best is both philosophical and experimental. Several of his novels have been filmed by American and French directors, resulting in classic noir including The Killer Inside Me (1952), After Dark My Sweet (1955), and The Grifters (1963).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Getaway; Mulholland Classic
• Author: Jim Thompson
• Contributor: Laura Lippman
• Publisher: Hachette+ORM, 2011
• ISBN: 0316195898, 9780316195898
• Length: 214 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Action & Adventure; Fiction / Crime; Fiction / Noir; Fiction / Thrillers / Crime; Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense