A salesman, a would-be divorcée, and an insurance policy turn toxic in Reno Vegas is a city of lovers, but in Reno, the business is divorce. Six weeks in Reno can erase the darkest marriages, and the only question is how to pass the time—craps or roulette? Jane Delavan is a roulette woman, a stately beauty from back East who’s too classy for the motel where she’s shacked up. She’s come for a divorce, but her husband has other ideas. He wants an annulment, and in exchange offers to take out a $100,000 insurance policy on himself—just in case something happens to him before their paperwork goes through. Jane is cunning enough to make sure that, if she wants something to happen, it will. Ed Horner is the insurance agent sent to settle the agreement, and it doesn’t take long for Jane to settle him. They fall in love over twenty-five-cent roulette, and soon get a bigger score in mind. In the Biggest Little City in the World, a king-size scheme is brewing.

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 woman whose extreme weight makes her old before her time, Holly stays fat on Valenty’s cooking—meat, potatoes, and endless gravy. Webster puts her on a diet, slimming her down the way he would an over-the-hill pro in search of a comeback. But as her waistline shrinks and her beauty emerges, Valenty gets jealous—putting them on course for a bloody confrontation where only the hungry will survive.

A collection of stories, both early and late, that show how 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 Baby in the Icebox” begins with a murdered wildcat and ends with a dead human—and what comes in between is some of the most striking prose James M. Cain ever put to paper. It is one of the first stories this master of crime fiction ever wrote, and it shows all the hallmarks of the novels that would later make him famous—namely Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. The tales in this collection are short, but Cain never needed more than a few pages to thrill.

Seventeen gripping tales from one of the toughest authors in the history of crime fiction 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 smashed the investigator’s head and shoved him out of the car. If he hurries, if he’s lucky, he will get back to Los Angeles in time to establish an alibi, burn his clothes, and avoid the electric chair. But as Lucky will discover, the deadliest threat is lurking within his own mind. “Dead Man” is just one of the outstanding stories included in this volume. The author of some of the most hard-boiled prose ever written, James M. Cain understood fear in all its forms—and knew better than anyone the terror of a killer on the run.

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 life. She meets Rick at the bus stop—a handsome young thug who’s a few days removed from his last bath. He’s charming and sympathetic, so she buys him a ticket and, on the ride to Baltimore, tells him that she’s going to find her real father. But wouldn’t it be better, Rick suggests, to greet Daddy in style? Of course, a mink coat would cost a little money, but Rick knows just where to get it. His plan is daring, foolish, and highly dangerous. What teenage runaway could resist?

A Confederate spy risks his life to win the heart of a fallen woman Early in the Civil War, the Confederacy sends Roger Duval to Sacramento, to keep an eye on the situation in California in hopes of turning the Western territory towards the Southern cause. It’s a plush assignment, well out of the line of fire, but Duval hasn’t been there long before he comes into mortal danger. On a swim in the Sacramento River, he gets knocked on the head by a paddleboat, and is drowning in the muck when Morina, a quick-witted woman of the night, tosses him a rope. Suffocated by instant, irresistible love, Roger follows Morina to her home turf: Virginia City, Nevada. For the miners, gamblers, and gunfighters who populate this hardscrabble town, her price is negotiable. But for a man in love, she charges a thousand dollars. Roger will sacrifice body, mind, and soul to get that money—but will his sacrifice be enough to make her love him?

All three books are written with an enduring view of the dark corners of the American psyche. Cain hammered high art out of the crude matter of betrayal, bloodshed, and perversity.

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 goes to Wilmington, he comes away not with old money, but young trouble. Her name is Hortense Garrett. She is his benefactor’s wife, a twenty-something beauty trapped in an unhappy marriage, whose good looks conceal the most cunning mind this side of the Potomac. She needs a ride to Washington, and Lloyd offers to give her a lift. They’ve barely left Delaware before he falls for her. By the time they hit the Beltway, his biography will be in her hands.

For the love of a beautiful waitress, a meat salesman will turn butcherClay 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 volcanic passion that will tear him apart. The hostess's name is Sally Alexis, a magician's wife whose rough-hewn charm mesmerizes this magnate of meat. She rebuffs his first pass, but calls him up later, to explain her situation and plead for tenderness. Although her marriage is miserable, she's won't leave her husband because she wants to secure an inheritance for her little boy. As the lovers get closer, Lockwood becomes an amateur illusionist himself, focusing on one very particular trick—how to make a magician disappear.

All three books are written with an enduring view of the dark corners of the American psyche. Cain hammered high art out of the crude matter of betrayal, bloodshed, and perversity.

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 Baby in the Icebox" begins with a murdered wildcat and ends with a dead human—and what comes in between is some of the most striking prose James M. Cain ever put to paper. It is one of the first stories this master of crime fiction ever wrote, and it shows all the hallmarks of the novels that would later make him famous—namely Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. The tales in this collection are short, but Cain never needed more than a few pages to thrill.

While searching for her father, a runaway stumbles into a deadly messAt 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 life. She meets Rick at the bus stop—a handsome young thug who's a few days removed from his last bath. He's charming and sympathetic, so she buys him a ticket and, on the ride to Baltimore, tells him that she's going to find her real father. But wouldn't it be better, Rick suggests, to greet Daddy in style? Of course, a mink coat would cost a little money, but Rick knows just where to get it. His plan is daring, foolish, and highly dangerous. What teenage runaway could resist?

An academic looking for money finds a woman and trouble insteadProfessor 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 goes to Wilmington, he comes away not with old money, but young trouble. Her name is Hortense Garrett. She is his benefactor's wife, a twenty-something beauty trapped in an unhappy marriage, whose good looks conceal the most cunning mind this side of the Potomac. She needs a ride to Washington, and Lloyd offers to give her a lift. They've barely left Delaware before he falls for her. By the time they hit the Beltway, his biography will be in her hands.

While slinging hash in a diner, a would-be Cinderella meets her Prince CharmingCarrie Selden is not at all like the woman you've read about in the papers. Though she was raised in an orphanage, she isn't an orphan. She didn't finish high school until she was nineteen, but that was because she was working as a waitress, not because she was slow. And though she's very cunning, well, she's no femme fatale. But her beauty . . . oh yes, her beauty is everything you've heard. At twenty-one, she takes her savings and moves to New York City, landing a job at a diner called Karb's, at the bottom rung of the restaurant chain's tall corporate ladder. Though she makes minimum wage, Carrie is savvy, and it isn't long before she starts to climb. When her coworkers unionize, they choose her as president, and from there, the sky is the limit. But just as the union gets underway, she meets a mysterious intellectual named Grant—who will either help her rise to the top, or drag her straight...

From a famous tough-guy writer, a collection of shockingly funny storiesEver since she got married, Doris has regretted giving up her singing career. After years of domestic drudgery, she decides to take one last crack at becoming an opera singer, even if it means sacrificing everything for the sake of her dream. Her contractor husband is fully supportive, having no idea that the family's true musical genius isn't Doris—it's him.In this and other stories in Career in C Major, James M. Cain shows off a light comedic touch that will surprise readers who are familiar only with his crime novels The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. But Cain had been publishing funny stories, articles, and satire since his early days as a reporter for H. L. Mencken's Baltimore Sun, and was just as comfortable writing about singers as he was about killers. This collection of Cain's lighter work shows that if an author is tough it doesn't mean he can't crack a smile.