The Grifters

The Grifters is a noir fiction novel by Jim Thompson, published in 1963. Plot Roy Dillon is a 25-year-old con artist living in Los Angeles. At the start of the novel, he gets hit in the stomach with a baseball bat when a simple con goes wrong. He seems to be well but when Lilly — his mother — visits him for the first time in almost eight years, he starts to deteriorate. She calls for a doctor, who informs her that Roy is internally hemorrhaging. Roy is taken to the hospital, where he begins to recover after several days. While at the hospital, his mother meets Moira Langtry, the woman that Roy is currently involved with. They take an instant dislike to each other. Lilly hires a nurse, Carol Roberg, in the hope that Roy will give up Moira for Carol. Roy then leaves the hospital and stays at Lilly's apartment where Carol looks after him. Roy discovers that Carol was the victim of a sexual experiment at Dachau. With this knowledge, but mostly because Roy does not want to associate with a person paid by Lilly, he breaks off his relationship with Carol. Meanwhile, Lilly is at the race track working for an organization headed by gangster Bobo Justus. He comes to meet her and he takes her back to his apartment. He proceeds to beat her for a serious mistake she made several months earlier. In the process, he badly burns the back of her hand with a cigar. She goes back to her apartment where she has a fight with Roy, and tells him to give up the grift. Roy goes back to work for the day and meets his new boss Perk Kraggs, who takes a liking to him. He offers him a job as a sales manager. Roy is unsure if he should take it or not.