A Swell-Looking Babe

A Swell-Looking Babe (1954) is another entertaining crime novel from Jim Thompson. In this novel Dusty Rhodes, a young bellhop at The Manton Hotel, who is working to support his unemployed father finds trouble in the form of "a swell-looking babe" who checks into the hotel unaccompanied and with a gangster-ish hotel resident. The novel is told from Dusty's point of view and eventually you get the idea that he is not such a "reliable" narrator. There's an informative Forward to this edition by author Duane Swierczynski as well.