ONE strand of the American character, popularised by America’s first novelist James Fenimore Cooper, is that of the rugged but honest pioneer, hewing to a homespun truth that in its simplicity permits no obfuscation.The other side, also prevalent in American literature, is a duplicitous, lying, cheating, conning American who will go to any ends to deceive his fellows. This side is particularly well represented in the work of Herman Melville, Mark Twain and the crime novels of Jim Thompson.