One must read James M. Cain on his own terms. He is something more than a whodunit writer, something less than a serious novelist; but within the zone of psychological cheekiness that he has staked out for exploration, he is a master craftsman. In "Galatea," which is southern Maryland, rather than southern California, Cain edges a little closer to the method of Graham Greene. His characters are endowed with a self-awareness of guilt, purged of their sins through violence rather than good deeds. There is even a word or two in favor of God "Galatea" is a tender book, built around a grotesque situation, with only a few of the old Cainine snarls in evidence. (p. 4)

[The heroine] is in imminent danger of death by overeating, a terminal condition plotted by her husband as a means of getting her inheritance. Since this consists of a very profitable chain...