Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity 

by James M. Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have seen the movie based on this book many times (I highly recommend it) but had never read any of Cain's books. It was interesting how much the novel sounded exactly like the movie (I definitely heard Fred MacMurray's voice in my head as I was reading). The ending of the novel is quite different from the end of the movie which surprised me. 

The narrator of the book is an insurance agent who meets a woman who turns his head and inspires him to implement a plan to defraud the company he works for. The writing is very clean and tight and the tension kept me turning pages to find out what would happen (even though I thought I knew). I am definitely going to read more of  Cain's books. Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice are likely possibilities. Both of these were movies as well. I have seen MP, but not TPART. 

This book is from my Classics Club list and counts toward the Back to the Classics Challenge as a book by a new-to-me author.