Tense and Explosive

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My god, the utter callousness of it all!

It's not too spoilery to give you a summary of the book, however, if you intend to read Double Indemnity, I'd suggest not reading the next two sentences. SUMMARY: A woman consults an insurance agent about taking out a special kind of insurance on her husband, the kind which sends up red flags for the agent, red flags which he ignores. Seduced by the woman and greed, the insurance agent helps her commit murder.

The flippant way in which human life is treated by the narrator reminded me of Humbert Humbert from Lolita. He's a special kind of psycho you don't often see in the papers. In books perhaps he's more common.

This is James M. Cain, so the writing for the genre is fantastic. It's a freaking classic! Sure it doesn't have the name recognition as his famous The Postman Always Rings Twice, but don't sell this one short. I enjoyed it just as much as Postman. There's a similar tone and cadence in them. The emotions are strained, tense, constrained and then explosive.

This isn't cops-n-robbers crime, this is crime straight out of the newspapers...exactly where former journalist Cain got the salacious story. Well worth your time. Give it a read!

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