Today Cain is still regarded as a novelist who brought to life the California of the 1930s. The setting of Double Indemnity is more than just local color; it presents a realistic scenario in which the characters act out their tragedies. It reflects what Cain saw as the dominant characteristics of the men and women of his world, for Walter Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger live in a society where one's wish can come true fairly quickly and with fairly little effort, a society where furniture is bought on the easy-payment plan, where bungalows are rented in the Hollywood Hills for fifteen dollars a week, where single professional men can retain a houseboy and still afford to drive a new car. This is not the waste land of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934); it is a more civilized world, but because of its orderliness, the murder is...