All three books are written with an enduring view of the dark corners of the American psyche. Cain hammered high art out of the crude matter of betrayal, bloodshed, and perversity.

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.

A down-on-his-luck boxing trainer finds a woman worth fighting for in this “assured” novel by an MWA Grand Master Award winner (Kirkus Reviews). It took some doing, but Duke Webster is out of prison. Val Valenty arranged the parole, and now the onetime prizefighter and boxing coach is his puppet, breaking his back on Valenty’s farm in exchange for a pittance. But Valenty is about to find out that boxing men never take orders without a scrap. The trouble begins when Webster meets Valenty’s wife. A barrel-shaped woman whose extreme weight makes her old before her time, Holly stays fat on Valenty’s cooking—meat, potatoes, and endless gravy. Webster puts her on a diet, slimming her down the way he would train an over-the-hill pro in search of a comeback. But as her waistline shrinks and her beauty emerges, Valenty gets jealous—putting them on course for a bloody confrontation where only the hungry will survive. This gritty, surprising tale comes from the acclaimed author of Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce—a writer with “an empathy for losers and society’s lost souls” (Quad-City Times). Praise for James M. Cain’s fiction “Cain is one novelist who has something to teach just about any writer, and delight just about any reader.” —Anne Rice, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Interview with a Vampire “Entertaining and cleverly plotted.” —The New York Times

Gil Cunningham had hoped that the first time he set foot in the brothel on the Drygate it would also be his last, but by the time all was settled he felt quite at home within its artfully painted chambers. The bawdy house, along with the neighboring property, is offered to Gil and his wife Alys by the forceful Dame Isabella. But matters are confused by an outbreak of counterfeit coins in Glasgow, which Gil has been ordered to investigate. Then Dame Isabella is found dead in strange circumstances, and the more Gil pursues the cause of her death, the more false coins he finds. Rumors circulate that the Devil is abroad in Strathblane. By the time Gil and Alys have untangled matters, some very surprising—and sinister—things have come to light.

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!

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