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A review by thereaderred
The Cocktail Waitress by James M. Cain
4.0
WOW!
You ever get those moments where you've got really excited about something, wether it be a movie, a book or an album and you have really high expectations but it turns out they were incredibly justified?
Well I sure have after reading "The Cocktail Waitress". First of all I'm a huge fan of Cain's novels, he really brings out the most taboo topics and presents them in a mature and realistic manner, also his decision for characters to feature in them are sort of the low down everyday types that generally hide a dark secret. This was no different either.
So this book was published 35 years after he died but the quality of writing is the same. This isn't one of those unfished books where someone else gets paid to complete it failing miserably 9 times out of 10. The fluidity of the pacing and sharp dialogue/prose is still there, which makes sense right?
It introduces us to our protagonist, Joan Medford, a woman whose husband has died in a car accident due to a supposed D.U.I, but there are rumours going round that suspect her of foul play. But the book is less about the unsolved mystery and more on the psychological front. We see her start from rock bottom and semi gradually changes to better herself financially (there's also some really cool moments in the coctail bar with the ensemble characters), but Cain has a way of tapping into the human psyche because even if Joan is slightly better off than before she still suffers from negative human emotions. This is mostly displayed when she gets into a heated discussion with others and when she falls in love with more than one person but tries to play both sides to her advantage.
On that front she is a bit hard to relate to because she gives information about herself but the theme of the suspected murder leaves you asking some questions as to wether her statements are truly credible because for the most part the entire murder subplot is left ambiguous.
Would I say this is as good as his others? Yes. But then again I'm completely biased when it comes to Cain's gritty writing, do I recommend it to fans of crime novels, especially of the hard boiled variety? Definitely Yes! There's a great layer of suspense but there's also some emotional depth included to save it from becoming totally forgettable.
A perfect swansong for Cain and a nice companion piece to his other seminal novels.
You ever get those moments where you've got really excited about something, wether it be a movie, a book or an album and you have really high expectations but it turns out they were incredibly justified?
Well I sure have after reading "The Cocktail Waitress". First of all I'm a huge fan of Cain's novels, he really brings out the most taboo topics and presents them in a mature and realistic manner, also his decision for characters to feature in them are sort of the low down everyday types that generally hide a dark secret. This was no different either.
So this book was published 35 years after he died but the quality of writing is the same. This isn't one of those unfished books where someone else gets paid to complete it failing miserably 9 times out of 10. The fluidity of the pacing and sharp dialogue/prose is still there, which makes sense right?
It introduces us to our protagonist, Joan Medford, a woman whose husband has died in a car accident due to a supposed D.U.I, but there are rumours going round that suspect her of foul play. But the book is less about the unsolved mystery and more on the psychological front. We see her start from rock bottom and semi gradually changes to better herself financially (there's also some really cool moments in the coctail bar with the ensemble characters), but Cain has a way of tapping into the human psyche because even if Joan is slightly better off than before she still suffers from negative human emotions. This is mostly displayed when she gets into a heated discussion with others and when she falls in love with more than one person but tries to play both sides to her advantage.
On that front she is a bit hard to relate to because she gives information about herself but the theme of the suspected murder leaves you asking some questions as to wether her statements are truly credible because for the most part the entire murder subplot is left ambiguous.
Would I say this is as good as his others? Yes. But then again I'm completely biased when it comes to Cain's gritty writing, do I recommend it to fans of crime novels, especially of the hard boiled variety? Definitely Yes! There's a great layer of suspense but there's also some emotional depth included to save it from becoming totally forgettable.
A perfect swansong for Cain and a nice companion piece to his other seminal novels.