James M. Cain was an American journalist and novelist, typically associated with the hard-boiled school of American crime fiction and considered a progenitor of "roman noir." Cain’s work delves into the darker aspects of human nature, focusing on passion, violence, and the corrupting influence of desire, all rendered in a famously lean and direct prose style. His narratives often explore moral ambiguity and the inescapable grip of fate, creating taut, suspenseful stories that continue to captivate readers with their raw intensity and psychological acuity.
Following her husband's death, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet. At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome schemer and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000 tip and an offer of marriage...
Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for clients who might be in trouble, and his instinct led him to Phyllis Nirdlinger. Phyllis wanted to buy an accident policy on her husband. Then she wanted her husband to have an accident. Walter wanted Phyllis. To get her, he would arrange the perfect murder and betray everything he had ever lived for.
John Sharp had just flopped in Rigoletto, down in Mexico, when he first saw Juana. Somehow, the beautiful Mexican-Indian prostitute offered him a way back, a chance to rebuild his career in New York and Hollywood. But then, like the snake in the garden, Winston Hawes, the prodigiously accomplished conductor, came back in to Sharp's life and an eternal, and lethal, triangle was formed.
Very Good to Like New condition. Perfect spine. Bright clean cover has slight edge wear. Text is perfect. Same day shipping from AZ, USA.
An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one grisly solution--a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve. First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.