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 later 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. Plot summary Walter Huff, an 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 kill her husband for the insurance money. After killing him in the Nirdlinger train car, they stage an accident from the rear platform of a train. But they cannot enjoy their success. The crime backfires on them, and soon afterwards, with the insurance company's claim manager Barton Keyes becoming more suspicious of them, he decides to kill her, too "for what she knew about me, and because the world isn't big enough for two people once they've got something like that on each other". With her own distrust mounting, Phyllis decides to kill her accomplice. One night, he tries to ambush her, but she forestalls him and shoots at him instead. He survives, though, and the end sees both of them on a steamship heading to Mexico: Keyes has given them an ostensible chance to escape formal justice by booking their passages - without them knowing about the other. With "nothing ahead of" them (Cain, p. 113), they finally decide to jump off the ship to end their own lives. Publication History In the autumn of 1934, shortly after the release of his first novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain and wife Elina Tyszecka purchased a home in the Southern California city of Beverly Hills. Anticipating work as a screenplay writer in Hollywood, Cain decided to write a serial to help pay for the expensive property. The plot for Double Indemnity was derived from two independent sources: 1) An incident shared with him by Arthur Krock, assistant publisher when Cain worked at the New York World in 1924 intrigued him: A printer at the Louisville Courier-Journal had gratuitously altered the word “TUCK” in a routine advertisement for ladies underwear to