{"product_id":"the-postman-always-rings-twice-and-double-indemnity-the-franklin-library-of-mystery-masterpieces","title":"The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity (The Franklin Library of Mystery Masterpieces)","description":"209 pp. Imitation leather. ABOUT THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE: \"The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1934 crime novel by James M. Cain. The novel was successful and notorious upon publication. It is regarded as one of the more important crime novels of the 20th century. The novel's mix of sexuality and violence was startling in its time and caused it to be banned in Boston.[1] The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called \"the Greek\". Frank and Cora feel an immediate attraction to each other and begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities (when they first embrace, Cora commands Frank to bite her lip, and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood). Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love and working at a diner that she wants to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman make the scheme fail. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank and Cora are injured. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred but does not have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on each other, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her.\" ABOUT DOUBLE INDEMNITY: \"Double Indemnity is a 1943 crime novel, written by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. It was first published in serial form in Liberty magazine in 1936 and then was one of \"three long short tales\" in the collection Three of a Kind.[1] The novel later served as the basis for the film of the same name in 1944, adapted for the screen by the novelist Raymond Chandler and directed by Billy Wilder. Walter Huff, an insurance agent, falls for the married Phyllis Nirdlinger, who consults him about accident insurance for her unsuspecting husband. In spite of his instinctual decency, and intrigued by the challenge of committing the perfect murder, Walter is seduced into helping the femme fatale kill her husband for the insurance money. After killing him in the Nirdlinger car, they stage an accident from the rear platform of a train. But they cannot enjoy their success. The crime backfires on them, and soon afterwards, with the insurance company's claim manager Barton Keyes becoming more and more suspicious of them, he decides to kill her, too \"for what she knew about me, and because the world isn't big enough for two people once they've got something like that on each other\".[2] With her own distrust mounting, Phyllis also decides to kill her accomplice. One night, he tries to ambush her, but she forestalls him and shoots at him, instead. He survives, though, and the end sees both of them on a steamship heading to Mexico: Keyes has given them an ostensible chance to escape formal justice by booking their passages - without them knowing about the other. With \"nothing ahead of\" them (Cain, p. 113), they finally decide to jump off the ship and commit suicide.\"","brand":"The Franklin Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31065933840454,"sku":"2294568","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1232\/9510\/products\/2294568.jpg?v=1574054204","url":"https:\/\/ym-demo.myshopify.com\/products\/the-postman-always-rings-twice-and-double-indemnity-the-franklin-library-of-mystery-masterpieces","provider":"Yesterday's Muse","version":"1.0","type":"link"}