This being the 50th anniversary of the release of the movie, I have been hearing a lot of coverage about its making. This led me to want to read the book to see what all the fuss was about in the first place.
The plot of the novel is fairly similar to that of the movie. There are naturally other plot lines in the book that didn’t make it to the movie. These include the mayor of the town getting into trouble with local organized crime and the sheriff’s wife having an affair. The ending it also a bit different.
While I enjoyed this novel, I don’t really see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps it was one of those books that was a product of its time. It still holds up as a good novel, but I don’t think it would be the hit it was then if it was released today. This is the rare case where the movie was better than the book.
My rating: 3/5
