Walter Huff is a crack insurance salesman. Going door-to-door, he encounters Phyllis Nirdlinger, a married woman who entices him first into an affair, and then into a scheme to sign her husband up for life insurance and then murder hi...

Unlike the movie, the Cain novel features no murder. Spanning the Depression era, it is the story of a suburban California wife and mother. At the beginning of the book, Mildred turns out her husband Bert, who is jobless and philander...