I read this in an omnibus edition, but I want to review them singly.

I've never really cared for the Sam Peckinpah film of this, though I think that's just down to mostly not caring much for Sam Peckinpah films. In fact, I rather preferred the trashy 1994 remake, which was, if nothing else, a good deal pacier. It is interesting, though, that the film versions of Doc McCoy, seem to respectively reflect the then current notions of what made a good bad guy: Steve McQueen's cool icy glare and Alec Baldwin's brooding intensity. Neither of them fit with Thompson's original, a warm, attractive, personable charmer who's friendly and reassuring right up until the point where he shoots you in the mouth.

In the novel, Doc and his wife along with a damaged and unstable accomplice named Rudy stage a daring bank heist and get away more or less scott free. There's one other accomplice, but he doesn't make it out of the bank. There's a double cross, leaving Rudy supposedly dead and Doc and Carol go on the run. Rudy isn't dead, however, and the getaway isn't clean.

Doc and Carol's relationship is put to the test as her inexperience and his ruthlessness chip away at the genuine love they have for each other. They leave a trail of bodies in their wake, as does the loathsome Rudy. They are ruthless and pitiless criminals who do whatever needs to be done to protect themselves, ultimately damning themselves to a pretty, perfectly constructed little corner of hell.

It's a brilliant, perfectly-formed little novel. The characters are vivid, and it's a sign of the very best sort of writer can make the the reader become so involved in what happens to such terrible people. The book is full of acute psychological insights - translated to film as callow misogyny and macho cool - and there are many dark, memorable and wretched ordeals for them to endure and many innocent lives for them to destroy. The book was originally published as throwaway pulp in 1959. Time has transformed it into an enduring piece of savage, unsettling literature.