James M. Cain is an internationally acclaimed American novelist whose lurid, violent, sexually charged and relentlessly paced melodramas about crime and desperation epitomized the so-called ‘hard-boiled’ school of writing that flourished in the United States in the 1930s and ’40s. Cain’s works have all the best features of gripping crime fiction – they are fun, brash and page-turning, catapulting the reader through every story.
The stories Cain tells are rich, varied, and steeped in the evocative atmosphere of their setting. His writing is fast paced, brimming with suspense and anticipation. His work is laced with wit and black humor, however dark the subject matter. His anti-heroes are viscerally raw, flawed and fundamentally human. Cain constructs thoroughly researched, detailed worlds in which his readers become totally immersed. Using local vernacular and jargon throughout his writing, his characters are dynamic – both strangely familiar and genuinely unpredictable.
Cain doesn’t just tell a good crime story, he constructs a universe in which every character is a player in the cynical game of life. His anti-heroes are rapidly swept up into a spiralling chain of events and discover, all too late, that they are just a pawn in a multi-dimensional chess game. Cain’s world is like the Wild West – a place where everyone is out to get something, and no-one can be trusted.
In his own life, Cain initially struggled to find his niche. He failed as an opera singer – his greatest sorrow – and it took him many years to finally establish himself as a successful novelist. Even then he railed against the labels placed on him and his writing. But it was these failures that instilled in Cain a crucial affinity for those who do not succeed. His protagonists are society’s losers and lost souls – the powerless, disenfranchised and despairing who are out to make something of themselves and are willing to go to any lengths to do so.
Cain produced electrifying partnerships between his characters, thrusting them into impossible situations and watching how relationships play out under extreme pressure. He was especially interested in exploring how co-conspirators become beholden to one another in the aftermath of a crime – and the tension and paranoia which inevitably appears.
At the core of almost every Cain novel is a twisted love story, rife with passion, lust, distrust and jealousy. The twists and turns of these ill-fated relationships drive the narrative, far more than any complex criminal enterprise. His work contains powerful themes, exploring existentialism; disappointment and disillusionment in uncertain times; the subconscious power of emotions; class; the cynicism of the ‘American dream’; moral dilemmas; and the inevitability of delayed justice. His stories tend to be unified by a chilling central message: be careful what you wish for…
