Pop. 1280

Pop. 1280 is a crime novel by Jim Thompson, published in 1964.Set in the fictional town of Pottsville, Texas during the early 1900s, the novel follows Nick Corey, a seemingly dim-witted sheriff whose pleasant exterior hides a scheming, psychopathic personality. He has a cynical view of the town he lives in and sees his duty as keeping up a thin veneer of respectability that allows everyone else to act as illicitly. Critical reception has been largely positive. NPR's Stephen Marche described it as Thompson's "true masterpiece, a preposterously upsetting, ridiculously hilarious layer cake of nastiness, a romp through a world of nearly infinite deceit."