James M. Cain (1892-1977) is an internationally acclaimed American novelist whose lurid, violent, sexually charged and relentlessly paced melodramas about crime and desperation epitomised the so-called “hard-boiled” school of writing that flourished in the United States in the 1930s and ’40s. Cain ranks with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as one of the masters of the genre. He is best known for his noir masterpieces The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity which have been continually in print since first publication and inspired iconic movie adaptations. Cain’s work has sold millions of copies and he is rightly lauded as one of the American literary greats.