Jealous Woman
Published on 21. May 2024
122 pages
978-1-5040-9469-6 (ISBN)
Description
An ambitious Reno salesman. A wealthy would-be divorcée. An insurance policy. It's a toxic combination in this noir thriller by an MWA Grand Master...
If Las Vegas is a city of lovers, 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 is 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 have a bigger score in mind. In the Biggest Little City in the World, a king-size scheme is brewing...
Praise for James M.Cain's fiction
"Cleverly plotted." - The New York Times
"Swift and absorbing." - The Wall Street Journal
If Las Vegas is a city of lovers, 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 is 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 have a bigger score in mind. In the Biggest Little City in the World, a king-size scheme is brewing...
Praise for James M.Cain's fiction
"Cleverly plotted." - The New York Times
"Swift and absorbing." - The Wall Street Journal
More details
Person
James M. Cain (1892-1977) was one of the most important authors in the history of crime fiction. Born in Maryland, he became a journalist after giving up on a childhood dream of singing opera. After two decades writing for newspapers in Baltimore, New York, and the army-and a brief stint as the managing editor of the
New Yorker-Cain moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s. While writing for the movies, he turned to fiction, penning the novella
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934). This tightly wound tale of passion, murder, and greed became one of the most controversial bestsellers of its day, and remains one of the foremost examples of American noir writing. It set the tone for Cain's next few novels, including
Serenade (1937),
Mildred Pierce (1941),
Double Indemnity (1943), and
The Butterfly (1947). Several of his books became equally successful noir films, particularly the classic 1940s adaptations of
Mildred Pierce and
Double Indemnity. Cain moved back to Maryland in 1948. Though he wrote prolifically until his death, Cain remains most famous for his early work.
