#1371 in our old book database. Rated: Indifferent.

I read this as part of a James M. Cain kick I was on from 1996 to 2000. It's a sequel of sorts to Cain's Double Indemnity, but the story in the book is less interesting than the story behind the book, which can be found in detail here:

https://thrillingdetective.com/2018/10/24/barton-keyes/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealous_Woman

The gist of it is that Cain wrote a sequel to Double Indemnity in 1946 called Nevada Moon but couldn't sell it until it was reworked and retitled Jealous Woman. So the 1950 Avon first edition and subsequent reprints do not include insurance investigator Barton Keyes (played by Edward G. Robinson in the 1944 classic film) or references to Double Indemnity, but in 1989 Black Lizard restored Cain's original manuscript text and Keyes' supporting role.

So if you want the Double Indemnity sequel, check your edition of Jealous Woman carefully before buying it or checking it out of the library. ( )

Jealous Woman by James M. Cain is another hard-boiled mystery that involves insurance fraud. Even though the character Robert Keyes from Double Indemnity is one of the main characters in this book, it still comes nowhere near recapturing the magic of that story. This book suffered from a convoluted, bulky plot that had far too many holes for the reader to bridge.

In the days before no-fault divorce, Reno, Nevada became the divorce capitol of America. Jane Delavan has come to fulfill her 6 week residency but it turns out her husband has another idea. He wants to go for an annulment and instead of alimony he wants to take out a $100,000.00 life insurance annuity. Ed Horner is the life insurance agent who arrives to settle the deal, but before too long Ed and Jane are involved. Other people who have an interest in this annulment also arrive in Reno, this includes Jane first husband and his current wife, and Robert Keyes who smells a rat.

What follows is an intensely confusing whodunit with too many characters for this short book to sustain. Overall, Jealous Woman is a weak rehash of his masterpiece Double Indemnity and I would recommend that readers skip this book in favour of the brilliant original. ( )

A weak effort by a great master of the hardboiled novel. Written shortly after Cain left Hollywood for Maryland (where he lived for the rest of his life) this work tries but fails to capture the excitement of Double Indemnity with another case of insurance fraud involving one of the same characters (Keyes). However, this novelette lacks the spare prose and impact of Cain's earlier works. What's more, the brilliant Keyes of Double Indemnity is here reduced to a weak willed character who gets his facts wrong and makes the ethical blunder of getting involved with one of the principals in the case he is investigating.

Although this work is short, the reader may need a scorecard to keep the characters straight: Jane is married to Tom, who is having an affair with Jenkins, the maid but who is thinking of divorcing Jane to marry Faith, also known as Penny. Jane gets involved with Ed, the insurance salesman, and considers marrying him, while Ed's insurance colleague Keyes gets involved with Lady Sperry, who is married to Dick, Jane's ex -husband, and who is thinking of marrying someone else. Two of the male characters are killed, one of the women tries to kill another of the women, and one of the women kills herself. Resolution of the mystery of who did what to whom doesn't make up for the tough effort to get there. If a writer deserves to be known by his best work, Jealous Woman is better off forgotten. ( )