Mignon
Published on 21. May 2024
243 pages
978-1-5040-9471-9 (ISBN)
Description
A money-hungry ex-soldier in Civil War New Orleans is seduced into a web of treason and temptation in this novel by "one of the greats of American noir" (
The Guardian).
The Union has captured New Orleans, and Bill Cresap has come to reap the profits. A school friend has a line on some easy money, and Cresap is eager to make his fortune. But when he lands in the Crescent City, still nursing a leg wound from Chancellorsville, he finds that his friend has vanished and taken their start-up capital with him. Just when despair threatens to overpower Cresap, Mignon Fournet arrives to overwhelm him instead. A Creole widow with rebel sympathies and hopeful eyes, she has come to Cresap in desperate need. The army has arrested her father and she will do whatever it takes to find out where he's detained and what he's charged with. She begs Cresap to use his army connections to find him. Cresap soon discovers that the stakes are sky high: Fournet's father shipped supplies to the Confederate commander and could pay for this treason with his life. Dazzled by Fournet, Cresap agrees to help free her father. Although the veteran's army days are behind him, his war is just starting to heat up...
Praise for James M.Cain's fiction
"Cleverly plotted." - The New York Times
"Swift and absorbing." - The Wall Street Journal
The Union has captured New Orleans, and Bill Cresap has come to reap the profits. A school friend has a line on some easy money, and Cresap is eager to make his fortune. But when he lands in the Crescent City, still nursing a leg wound from Chancellorsville, he finds that his friend has vanished and taken their start-up capital with him. Just when despair threatens to overpower Cresap, Mignon Fournet arrives to overwhelm him instead. A Creole widow with rebel sympathies and hopeful eyes, she has come to Cresap in desperate need. The army has arrested her father and she will do whatever it takes to find out where he's detained and what he's charged with. She begs Cresap to use his army connections to find him. Cresap soon discovers that the stakes are sky high: Fournet's father shipped supplies to the Confederate commander and could pay for this treason with his life. Dazzled by Fournet, Cresap agrees to help free her father. Although the veteran's army days are behind him, his war is just starting to heat up...
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.
