James M. Cain (1892–1977)

What a fantastic book. At just over 100 pages it feels as full as a book three times its size, with enough turns to keep things unpredictable the entire time. The noir sex & violence doesn't feel forced like in many later adaptations, the spiralling romance and tension is the backbone of the story, not thrown in titillation. It feels like it could have had a dozen different endings along the way, and you're almost torn between wanting to see someone make it out or to have them all punished show more for their sins. As the foreword notes, despite noir being adopted and immortalized by Hollywood, they couldn't actually put to screen what Cain wrote even decades after morality rules and an attempt to ban the work.
Notes on the edition: One of the slimmest FS volumes, yet richly and fittingly illustrated (but don't look up the illustrations as they spoil the main story beats). Fully bound in cloth with a blocked design, Abby Wove paper. show less

A classic tense noir where both leads are unlikable, but that doesn't ultimately matter. The back blurb sums it up best with "the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches.". Told through the male character's POV, it's hard to fathom his reasoning at the start other than being daring and bored, but the second half of the story is where it starts really getting good and you ultimately aren't 100% who to trust. The surprise twists are huge surprises but they work show more out with ironic glee that fits the story, the poor choices the character makes, and the destruction you can see coming a mile away. show less

The style is sharp, confident, and atmospheric in a way only Cain seems to manage — the kind of prose that pulls you along even when the story itself makes you tense in a way you didn’t expect.

And I’ll be honest:
I do want to know how this ends.
Cain knows how to hook a reader with structure alone.

But then there’s John Howard Sharp, the narrator — and that’s where the entire experience collapses for me.

I can handle flawed protagonists. I can handle moral rot, arrogance, cruelty, show more delusion — I read horror, noir, and the darker end of literary fiction. None of that is new or intimidating. But John Howard Sharp’s worldview is something else entirely. It’s not just dated; it’s suffocating. His opinions about women, desire, talent, and his own supposed brilliance are so self-satisfied and so casually dehumanizing that I couldn’t tolerate another page inside his head.

Cain’s skill is undeniable.
Sharp’s worldview is intolerable.

It’s a strange reading experience — admiring the writing while recoiling from the narrator. But for me, that’s the line. I can respect a book’s craft and still choose not to live in its consciousness.

So yes, I loved the style.
Yes, I was curious about the ending.
But no, I will not read another page of John Howard Sharp’s internal monologue.

This one simply isn’t for me. show less

Why, oh why, don't I read these kinds of books more often?

James Cain is a master of the crime noir novel. Not a word is wasted as he suspensfully sets the scene -- smoky, dark bar; love triangle; a voluptuous young cocktail waitress who already has one dead husband and needs to find a way to get a lot of money -- quickly. The story is told in the first person from her point of view, which works so well -- as a reader can we trust her?

This was Cain's last book and he died before it was show more finished. Editors painstakingly went through his notes and drafts to come up with a final version. While many say it's not his finest work, this reader was pretty darn pleased. show less