Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity is a 1943 crime novel by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. It was first published in serial form in Liberty magazine in 1936 and later republished as one of "three long short tales" in the collection Three of a Kind. The novel is based on the 1927 murder of Albert Snyder of the New York City borough of Queens which was perpetrated by his wife and her lover. Cain attended the trial while working as a journalist in New York. The novel served as the basis for the film of the same name in 1944, adapted for the screen by the novelist Raymond Chandler and directed by Billy Wilder, as well as numerous remakes in different forms. Plot summary Walter Huff, a bachelor insurance agent, falls for the married Phyllis Nirdlinger, who consults him about accident insurance for her unsuspecting husband. In spite of his instinctual decency, and intrigued by the challenge of committing the perfect murder, Walter is seduced into helping the femme fatale do away with her husband for the insurance money. Killing him at night, they place the body on railroad tracks to look as if he had fallen from the observation platform of a train. Huff's company are suspicious and delay payment, keeping Phyllis and Walter under surveillance so that they dare not meet. Without the money he had killed for and without the woman he wanted, Walter decides to keep her quiet by murdering her as well, but she forestalls him and shoots him in the chest. Hospitalized, he confesses the plot to Barton Keyes, the company's claims manager, who arranges for him to escape justice by taking a steamship for Mexico. Also on the ship is Phyllis and, when the two meet, they decide to end it all by jumping off the stern.