The Postman Always Rings Twice (Special Edition)
A special edition of The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy. When Frank, an amoral young drifter, gets thrown off a hay truck in the California desert, he ends up at a diner run by Cora and her inconvenient husband, Nick. This chance meeting puts them all on a sure path to perdition. First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Special Edition
Mildred Pierce
In Mildred Pierce, noir master James M. Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devasting emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable. Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.
Looking for The Stranger
"A National Book Award-finalist biographer tells the story of how a young man in his 20s who had never written a novel turned out a masterpiece that still grips readers more than 70 years later and is considered a rite of passage for readers around the world, "--NoveList.
The Cocktail Waitress
Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son. At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000 tip and an unconventional offer of marriage... The last, lost crime novel by one of the greatest noir novelists of all time, author of Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Now published for the very first time - including an afterword by editor Charles Ardai!
Sinful Woman
A starlet comes to Reno to start a new life—and end her old one forever Sylvia Shoreham’s Hollywood dreams came true long ago. Critically beloved for her beauty, talent, and style, she was on her way to international stardom when a bad contract committed her to seven years of trashy comedies and half-baked melodramas. Her marriage to her producer husband has become a rotten, loveless sham, so Sylvia’s silver screen life verges on a nightmare. To escape her celluloid hell, she’s got only one option: Forget Hollywood. It’s time for a Reno vacation. She comes to Nevada hoping for a divorce from her husband, Vicki, and an end to her contract, but the ugly side of the business follows her. To protect herself from Vicki, she enlists Nevada’s biggest Sylvia Shoreham fan. He’s six feet tall, strong as a mule, and just happens to be Reno’s sheriff. When her divorce turns into a war, this Hollywood icon will be glad to have him on her side.
