James M. Cain cover gallery

(* The following brief introduction is an extract from one of the essays in Mean Streetmaps.)

If ever a book was filled with twisted hopes and crooked dreams, it is Double Indemnity. To James M. Cain, its author, it was a "piece of tripe," written to cash in on the startling success of his first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Cain, nervously approaching his second full-length novel