The Postman Always Rings Twice / Double Indemnity / Mildred Pierce / Selected Stories

These three classics from the master of the noir novel, along with five otherwise unavailable short stories, are electric with the taut narrative voice, the suspense, and the explosive violence and eroticism that were James M. Cain’s hallmarks. The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain’s first novel, is a fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, an erotic obsession, and murder. Double Indemnity follows closely as a story of blind passion, duplicity, and murder. Mildred Pierce is a psychological novel featuring a woman with a taste for shiftless men and devotion to her monstrous daughter. All three novels were adapted into classic Hollywood films. Also included are five masterful stories—“Pastorale,” “The Baby in the Icebox,” “Dead Man,” “Brush Fire,” “The Girl in the Storm”—previously out of print.