Insurance agent Walter Huff helps his client Phyllis top off her husband to collect the life insurance policy he just closed off. In order to be paid out the double amount, they have to make sure the man dies in a train accident, which is covered by a 'double indemnity' because of the unlikeliness of such an event.

The murder plot is one of the most intelligently devised set-ups I have ever encountered in any detective book. Just for the sheer cleverness of the thing, you would want them both to get away with it. But that is without taking into account Walter's colleague Keyes, a shrewd claims investigator who immediately finds the accident suspicious.

The book is full of witty dialogue and great, condensed descriptions. I had never read Cain and must say that this novel can surely stand next to Chandler's or Hammett's.

Strangely enough, the Billy Wilder movie is even better, with some great extra dialogue added by Chandler and a rewritten ending that works way better than the rather disappointing rounding off by Cain.