James M Cain
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ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • James M. Cain, virtuoso of the roman noir, gives us a tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful story in Double Indemnity, an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches.
Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for...
Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for...
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"Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter. Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions...
4) Cloud nine
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One man sells his soul to save an innocent—who turns out not to be so innocent after all
Graham meets Sonya outside of his real estate office. She is sixteen, beautiful, and showing just the right amount of leg. He’s ruminating on those legs when she drops the bombshell—she’s there because Graham’s brother, Burl, raped her, leaving her frightened, pregnant, and very much alone. She was spending the night...
Graham meets Sonya outside of his real estate office. She is sixteen, beautiful, and showing just the right amount of leg. He’s ruminating on those legs when she drops the bombshell—she’s there because Graham’s brother, Burl, raped her, leaving her frightened, pregnant, and very much alone. She was spending the night...
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For the love of a beautiful waitress, a meat salesman will turn butcher
Clay Lockwood enters the Portico with corned beef on his mind. He’s a top distributing executive with Grant’s Meats, and the contract with the Portico restaurant chain is only the latest in a long line of boardroom coups. He comes for lunch, and eats his fill of his company’s beef, but leaves with an entirely different hunger gnawing at his gut—a...
Clay Lockwood enters the Portico with corned beef on his mind. He’s a top distributing executive with Grant’s Meats, and the contract with the Portico restaurant chain is only the latest in a long line of boardroom coups. He comes for lunch, and eats his fill of his company’s beef, but leaves with an entirely different hunger gnawing at his gut—a...
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Seventeen hardboiled crime stories from the “poet of the tabloid murder” and author of Double Indemnity (Edmund Wilson).
They call him Lucky—but he has never had a lucky day in his life. A nineteen-year-old hobo just starting to ride the rails, he is hiding in the coal car when the railroad detective comes through. They get into a scuffle, and Lucky’s hand finds a railroad spike. Before he knows it, he has...
They call him Lucky—but he has never had a lucky day in his life. A nineteen-year-old hobo just starting to ride the rails, he is hiding in the coal car when the railroad detective comes through. They get into a scuffle, and Lucky’s hand finds a railroad spike. Before he knows it, he has...
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While searching for her father, a runaway stumbles into a deadly mess
At thirteen, Mandy was too old for spanking when her stepfather first took her over his knee. She's didn't mind the pain, but hated the look in his eye and his lingering hand. By the time she's fifteen, this young spitfire can't take any more of his unwanted groping. With seventy-four bucks in her pocket, she packs her things and buys the bus ticket that will change her...
At thirteen, Mandy was too old for spanking when her stepfather first took her over his knee. She's didn't mind the pain, but hated the look in his eye and his lingering hand. By the time she's fifteen, this young spitfire can't take any more of his unwanted groping. With seventy-four bucks in her pocket, she packs her things and buys the bus ticket that will change her...
9) Institute
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An academic looking for money finds a woman and trouble instead
Professor Lloyd Palmer loves a good biography. His fantasy is to start an institute to teach young scholars the biographical arts, and it will take old money to make his dreams come true. Around Washington, the oldest money is found not in the District, but in Delaware, a land of wealth so astonishing that even the Du Ponts are considered nouveau riche. But when the professor...
Professor Lloyd Palmer loves a good biography. His fantasy is to start an institute to teach young scholars the biographical arts, and it will take old money to make his dreams come true. Around Washington, the oldest money is found not in the District, but in Delaware, a land of wealth so astonishing that even the Du Ponts are considered nouveau riche. But when the professor...
10) Galatea
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Out of jail and back at work, a boxing trainer finds a woman worth fighting for
It took some doing, but Duke Webster is out of prison. Val Valenty arranged the parole, and now the onetime boxing coach is his puppet, breaking his back on Valenty’s farm in exchange for a pittance. But Valenty is about to find out that boxing men never take orders without a scrap. The trouble starts when Webster meets Valenty’s wife. A barrel-shaped...
It took some doing, but Duke Webster is out of prison. Val Valenty arranged the parole, and now the onetime boxing coach is his puppet, breaking his back on Valenty’s farm in exchange for a pittance. But Valenty is about to find out that boxing men never take orders without a scrap. The trouble starts when Webster meets Valenty’s wife. A barrel-shaped...
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Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son.
At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer
who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000...
At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer
who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000...
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A collection of stories, both early and late, that show how Mystery Writers of America Grand Master James M. Cain made his name
There is a hungry tiger loose in the house, and that is not good news for anyone. A jealous husband let the animal out of his cage hoping he would eat his wife alive, but tigers aren’t used to taking orders. This jungle cat will get his meal, and he doesn’t care where it comes from.
“The...
There is a hungry tiger loose in the house, and that is not good news for anyone. A jealous husband let the animal out of his cage hoping he would eat his wife alive, but tigers aren’t used to taking orders. This jungle cat will get his meal, and he doesn’t care where it comes from.
“The...