Double Indemnity

Name: Double Indemnity
Author: James M. Cain

James M. Cain

— 1943 —

“

An insurance agent and a bored housewife plan to kill her husband for the insurance money.

The record

Time
An eveningA season
158 pages, about 3 hours: half the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
Insurance agent Walter Huff calls at the Nirdlinger house to renew a car policy and meets Phyllis.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 12 reviews from critics and book blogs, 10 credit the plot and one credits the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
Two commenters on one review say Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, on the shelf at 151 pages, is the better book.

on the prose
“Not. A. Word. Wasted.”
a book blog
on the delivery
“the bluntness of its delivery was a (good) shock to my system”
a Substack review
on the dialogue and characters
“The dialogue is tight and sharp, and the main characters leap off the page.”
a book blog
on the style
“truly an astonishing style, rippling and easy in a nervous sort of way”
John K. Hutchens · The New York Times Book Review, 1943

on the second act
“the charms wore away by the second act for me”
a book blog
on knowing Phyllis
“Phyllis is a little bit harder to get to know, at least at first”
a book blog
on character development
“Cain eschews too much character development, descriptive passages or believable motivation”
a book blog
on Walter and Phyllis
“Would this really happen that quickly with no trust built between the two?”
five stars · a book blog