The Cocktail Waitress

James M Cain achieved worldwide overnight fame when he published his first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, in 1934. The classics Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce followed, reinforcing Cain's reputation as the great chronicler of crimes of passion, typically set against a working-class backdrop during the Great Depression. His books have inspired many classic movies.

"This is vintage Cain ... Let's go get that book, baby. Let's read it. Let's get stinko." - "The Washington Post" "entertaining and cleverly plotted" - "Editors' Choice, New York Times" "Fittingly for the endpoint of a long and meaningful career, Cain saves his best twist for the very last page of his very last book, a haymaker from the blind side, so carefully finessed and camouflaged through the book as to bring a tear to a glass eye -- another writer's jealous acknowledgment. It is a moment that draws Joan's world and Cain's view of desire and consequence into tight focus. One thinks of the author well into his ninth decade, setting down those final passages with a hidden smile and a writer's certain knowledge that they won't see this coming. He was right." - "New York Times" "I think James M. Cain is one novelist who has something to teach just about any writer, and delight just about any reader. "The Postman Always Rings Twice" was a work of genius. So it's good news that "The Cocktail Waitress," Cain's last novel has finally been published." - Anne Rice "Swift and absorbing...pulses with more authentic primal energy than the work of any number of Cain imitators from the 1930s to the present." - "Wall Street Journal """The Cocktail Waitress "was found among his papers after a decade-long search and has never been published...until now. After burying her abusive husband on page 1 of the book, Joan takes a job waitressing to make ends meet, and winds up meeting two new men: a wealthy but repulsive older man and a handsome young schemer who makes her blood boil. Can you have any doubt that things will end badly for one or both of them? No, that's not a spoiler - it's a simple statement of fact when you're talking about a Cain femme fatale, the deadliest species there is." - "Huffington Post" "The Cocktail Waitress is a not-to-be missed crime thriller for all Cain fans ... A rare, hardboiled blast from the past." -" Shelfa