Two things may be said about James M. Cain with the greatest assurance. One is that nothing he has ever written has been entirely out of the trash category. The other is that in spite of the cheapness which sooner or later finds its way into his novels, an inordinate number of intelligent and fully literate people have read him. He has been translated in many parts of the world, and writers whose stature makes him look stunted have paid him the compliment of imitating him—as Albert Camus did, for example, in The Stranger. (p. 87)

The preface to Three of a Kind makes it clear that [Cain] has schooled himself grimly to produce the kind of effect he wants, with every sentence supercharged and a new jolt for the reader on every page. He is one of the few writers now practicing in America who are really...