Jim Thompson's importance in American crime fiction is based on works that undermine even as they depend upon their generic constraints. In his double relation to the genre, he is unlike other noteworthy paperback crime novelists of his era, such as...

FIREWORKS. The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, edited and introduced by Robert Polito and Michael McCauley. Donald I. Fine. 394 pp. $19.95. Was Jim Thompson crazy? Perhaps. But for sure, you hear speculation plenty these days. It comes as...

If Ross Perot didn't exist, there's a good chance Jim Lehrer would make him up, sketch him in, deliver him whole ("Star Trek" ears flapping, eyeballs shining dollar signs, cornmeal homilies crusting his mouth). But Lehrer's Perot would not be specifically meant as a...

A police officer has been arrested in the off-duty beating of a 15-year-old high school student, the Chicago Police Department said Sunday.Robert Gallegos, who is charged with aggravated battery, appeared on closed-circuit television Sunday afternoon in a Cook County courtroom, where a judge set bond...

Two escaped killers were captured on a Wyoming highway after stealing a sport utility vehicle and leading police on an 11-mile chase that left one of the convicts critically wounded, authorities said.Danny Martin Gallegos, 49, and Juan Carlos Diaz-Arevalo, 27, who escaped from a Utah...