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“... Jim Thompson never actually claimed to write capital-L Literature, but today, nearly twenty years after his death, many of his admirers are making the claim for him. Born in a sheriff’s apartment over the Caddo County Jail in Oklahoma in 1906, Thompson, like many good American boys, grew up to be a lot like his father. ‘Big Jim’ Thompson Sr was the popular multi-term sheriff of Caddo County until Oklahoma declared statehood at the turn of the century, and federal auditors began uncovering serious discrepancies in Big Jim’s books ...”

“... Scott Bradfield is a campus novelist. Still just under forty, he taught for five years at the University of California at Irvine while getting his PhD in American literature. He then took a job at a worthy but less prestigious school – Storrs University in Connecticut, where he now teaches English. While earning his degree and his bread in the classroom, Bradfield has, over the last ten years, put together an impressive corpus of fiction comprising two novels and a collection of short stories ...”

“... couplets evoke Ogden Nash rather than Pope, and he could learn a thing or two about humour from Scott Bradfield, who at any rate (on the basis of his story ‘Sweet ladies, good night, good night’) knows how to manufacture a few Woody Allenish wisecracks. ‘I was audited by scientologists and believe it was the most profound, unforgettable ...”