Like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity is written in the form of a confession. Cain again stays within the secure bounds of first-person narration, giving a privileged view of how the mind of an ordinary-man- turnedcriminal operates. Part of Cain's successful method of grounding his stories in a recognizable reality is to endow his characters with a certain expertise in a trade or profession, as in Double Indemnity he gives lessons in the art of selling someone an insurance policy.

One of the peculiarities of Cain's narrator in Double Indemnity is his unwillingness to divulge certain details of the story, such as the more grisly aspects of the murder. This technique serves a twofold purpose. First, it allows Cain to practice his brand of "selective realism" (Cain does not describe incidents of a lurid or violent nature), thereby allowing the reader to create at least part...