Dimensions
130 x 145 x 38mm
THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS was the final book written by Cain, who died in 1977. He was working on revisions to the manuscript until close to the end of his life. Charles Ardai, founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, first learned of the book's existence from Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition, and has spent more than nine years tracking down the author's original manuscript and arranging to get the rights to publish the book.
"Together with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain is universally considered one of the three greatest writers of noir crime fiction who ever lived, " says Ardai, "and for fans of the genre, THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS is the Holy Grail. It's like finding a lost manuscript by Hemingway or a lost score by Gershwin - that's how big a deal this is."
THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS tells the story of a beautiful young widow, Joan Medford, whose husband died under suspicious circumstances. To get by after his death, she takes a job as a waitress in a cocktail lounge, where he meets two new men: a handsome young schemer she falls in love with, a wealthy older man she marries.
"Why am I taping this?" Joan narrates. "It's in the hope of getting it printed to clear my name of the charges made against me...of being a femme fatale who knew ways of killing a husband so slick they couldn't be proved. Unfortunately, they cannot be disproved either... All I know to do is to tell it and tell it all, including some things no woman would willingly tell..."
