DOUBLE INDEMNITY is the classic tale of an evil woman motivated by greed who corrupts a weak man motivated by lust. Walter Huff is an insurance investigator like any other until the day he meets the beautiful and dangerous Phyllis Nirdlinger and falls under her spell. Together they plot to kill her husband and split the insurance. It'll be the perfect murder ... THE AUTHOR James M. Cain was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892. Having served in the US Army in World War 1, he became a journalist in Baltimore and New York in the 1920's. He later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Cain died in 1977.
Double Indemnity
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'[A] fine idea for a series... They already have a superb noir backlist.. but adding Philip K Dick's Minority Report and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? improves the mix.' (SCOTSMAN )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book came in a boxset of ten other crime authors, so I read the book only by chance. The writer doesn't waste any words and this book rattles by like an express train. The book complements The Maltese Falcon as perfect noir. You will find yourself just as caught up as the protagonist. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The Falcon and this book were both made into popular films but both started life as excellent books.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Officer Dibble
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There is an elephant in the room in reviewing this book and a couple of reviewers have touched upon it; the ending is preposterous. Suffice to say that the ending bears no relation to the film, without straying further into 'spoiler' territory
Of course, it's classic noir and, of course, James Cain is a maestro of the hard-boiled genre. However, the film does this book a lot of favours. The motivation given to the two key protagonists is flimsy. The most credible character turns out to be the claims negotiator Keyes, with his firm belief in 'actuarial tables..hunch..instinct..experience'.
Mr Cain builds the tension well, especially through the execution of the crime. The downcast tone of the narrator seeps through the story. It positively reeks of Depression America.
For potential purchasers I would also suggest you fight shy of the full RRP of £[] for an edition that is massively bulked out to 135 pages with a couple of pages of routine introduction by James Lee Burke.
Of course, it's classic noir and, of course, James Cain is a maestro of the hard-boiled genre. However, the film does this book a lot of favours. The motivation given to the two key protagonists is flimsy. The most credible character turns out to be the claims negotiator Keyes, with his firm belief in 'actuarial tables..hunch..instinct..experience'.
Mr Cain builds the tension well, especially through the execution of the crime. The downcast tone of the narrator seeps through the story. It positively reeks of Depression America.
For potential purchasers I would also suggest you fight shy of the full RRP of £[] for an edition that is massively bulked out to 135 pages with a couple of pages of routine introduction by James Lee Burke.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed reading this book. I liked the story line and will probably read more from this author James M Cain
By PIPPA
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
All this is is plot and it is wonderful. Easy to read as it moves at one heck of a pace so really addictive.
By Craig Hall
Format:Paperback
This is a wonderful but short noir novel about greed and lust and murder.... Cain writes in the voice of a successful insurance salesman who gets embroiled in a plot to murder the husband of a femme fatale with whom he gets involved. As the novel proceeds, it explores issues around trust and the loss of that trust in the light of the crime.
The book is expertly written - it is succinct and engaging. It is very short and a definite page turner. I would recommend to anyone with a couple of hours to spare.
The book is expertly written - it is succinct and engaging. It is very short and a definite page turner. I would recommend to anyone with a couple of hours to spare.
By Snowman
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Nice, tight little tale. His dialogue isn't as good as other authors, but I enjoyed the story.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have come late to the world of James M Cain, having found him amongst the interviewees in "The Paris Review Interviews, volume 1" itself one of the must-reads of 2007. I'm sure I was not alone in knowing him only by virtue of those novels which have been successfully transposed onto the big screen.
Even allowing for the fact that his style has been much imitated since his texts still leave the reader reeling from the casual and callous brutality which inhabits the social sub-stratum in which his characters move. Like his contemporary Runyon, with whom he shares a similar style, Cain began life as a journalist and that discipline must be credited for honing his prose as well as serving up the seeds of some of his best stories.
In "Double Indemnity" Cain brings us an insurance agent, Walter Huff, who shows that for all his street-wise salesmanship he is still susceptible in the presence of a beautiful woman to a rush of gullibility from which there is no return.
The criminal deed is set up and executed quickly and efficiently and the reader is brought up close to Huff's freefall. The real success in the book is in the unravelling of the criminal scheme and it is Huff's boss, Keyes, with his methodical process of enquiry who emerges as the true if unlikely hero of the novel.
At 136 pages this story can be consumed at a single sitting - in fact, it demands it - but it is as memorable as many classics five times its length.
Even allowing for the fact that his style has been much imitated since his texts still leave the reader reeling from the casual and callous brutality which inhabits the social sub-stratum in which his characters move. Like his contemporary Runyon, with whom he shares a similar style, Cain began life as a journalist and that discipline must be credited for honing his prose as well as serving up the seeds of some of his best stories.
In "Double Indemnity" Cain brings us an insurance agent, Walter Huff, who shows that for all his street-wise salesmanship he is still susceptible in the presence of a beautiful woman to a rush of gullibility from which there is no return.
The criminal deed is set up and executed quickly and efficiently and the reader is brought up close to Huff's freefall. The real success in the book is in the unravelling of the criminal scheme and it is Huff's boss, Keyes, with his methodical process of enquiry who emerges as the true if unlikely hero of the novel.
At 136 pages this story can be consumed at a single sitting - in fact, it demands it - but it is as memorable as many classics five times its length.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is, quite simply, one of the great novels in this genre. If you're looking at this, there's a chance you're either familiar with Cain (in which case this is his best book, so go ahead an read it) or you've been directed here because of a love of, say, Chandler or Hammett, in which case you really need to know about Cain, who is desperately underreated. A book to own and cherish and re-read. The Crime Masterworks edition is a good one, although I have a marginal preference for the more durable Everyman edition of Cain's fiction.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing.
The original novel from which Billy Wilder's famous noir came from. Great for any fan of Billy Wilder, film noir or detective novels!
Published 4 months ago by DoodleinWonderland
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good noir
Good film noir by a well respected novelist in the genre - get it read.
The characters seem a little eager to double cross and bump people off but then again if they werent... Read more
The characters seem a little eager to double cross and bump people off but then again if they werent... Read more
Published 6 months ago by aprilfool
5.0 out of 5 stars
136 pages of absolute classic noir!
I love the classic crime noir novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but somehow never got round to read any by James M Cain. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2010 by Annabel Gaskell
4.0 out of 5 stars
"He's very unhappy. He'll be better off dead, won't he?"
This classic mystery from 1935 details the complicity of Walter Huff, an insurance agent, and Phyllis Nirdlinger, in the death of Phyllis's husband, one of Huff's insurance... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2006 by Mary Whipple
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