James M. Cain byl americký novinář a prozaik, jehož dílo je často spojováno s drsnou školou americké kriminální fikce a je považován za jednoho ze zakladatelů žánru „roman noir“. Cain se zaměřoval na temné stránky lidské povahy, vášně a násilí, přičemž využíval úsporný a přímý styl, který se stal jeho poznávacím znamením. Jeho romány zkoumají morální ambivalence postav a nevyhnutelnost osudu v napínavých příbězích, které dodnes fascinují čtenáře svou syrovostí a psychologickou hloubkou.
Detektivní román Pošťák vždycky zvoní dvakrát vyšel poprvé v roce 1934 v Bostonu a vzápětí byl zakázán pro přemíru násilí a erotiky. Přesto se jeho autor stal uznávaným prozaikem s osobitou vizí, popisující odvrácenou stranu Ameriky a románem Pošťák zvoní vždycky dvakrát se inspiroval Camus při psaní svého románu Cizinec.
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.
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.
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.
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...
