James Cain: 24 books

While searching for her father, a runaway stumbles into a deadly mess At thirteen, Mandy was too old for spanking when her stepfather first took her over his knee. She’s didn’t mind the pain, but hated the look in his eye and his lingering hand. By the time she’s fifteen, this young spitfire...

A starlet comes to Reno to start a new life—and end her old one forever Sylvia Shoreham’s Hollywood dreams came true long ago. Critically beloved for her beauty, talent, and style, she was on her way to international stardom when a bad contract committed her to seven years of trashy comedies...

A salesman, a would-be divorcée, and an insurance policy turn toxic in Reno Vegas is a city of lovers, but in Reno, the business is divorce. Six weeks in Reno can erase the darkest marriages, and the only question is how to pass the time—craps or roulette? Jane Delavan is a roulette woman,...

For the love of a beautiful waitress, a meat salesman will turn butcher Clay Lockwood enters the Portico with corned beef on his mind. He’s a top distributing executive with Grant’s Meats, and the contract with the Portico restaurant chain is only the latest in a long line of boardroom...

While slinging hash in a diner, a would-be Cinderella meets her Prince Charming Carrie Selden is not at all like the woman you’ve read about in the papers. Though she was raised in an orphanage, she isn’t an orphan. She didn’t finish high school until she was nineteen, but that was because...

An academic looking for money finds a woman and trouble instead Professor Lloyd Palmer loves a good biography. His fantasy is to start an institute to teach young scholars the biographical arts, and it will take old money to make his dreams come true. Around Washington, the oldest money is...

A hijacker and his hostage escape to a very strange, very dangerous farm Since his father died, every Saturday night has been the same for Dave and his mother. She starts by talking—aimless, weird fantasies about get-rich-quick schemes that never come to anything—but finally she goes silent,...

Out of jail and back at work, a boxing trainer finds a woman worth fighting for It took some doing, but Duke Webster is out of prison. Val Valenty arranged the parole, and now the onetime boxing coach is his puppet, breaking his back on Valenty’s farm in exchange for a pittance. But Valenty...

A Union army invalid meets a comely Louisiana rebel and never looks back The Union has captured New Orleans, and Bill Cresap has come to reap the profits. A school friend has a line on some easy money, and Cresap is eager to turn carpetbagger. But when he lands in the Crescent City, still nursing...

This edited volume in American constitutionalism places the Supreme Court’s declaration of same-sex marriage rights in U.S. v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) within the context of the Court’s developing understanding of the legal and social status of marriage and the family. Leading...