Seventeen gripping tales from one of the toughest authors in the history of crime fiction

They call him Lucky – but he has never had a lucky day in his life. A nineteen-year-old hobo just starting to ride the rails, he is hiding in the coal car when the railroad detective comes through. They get into a scuffle, and Lucky's hand finds a railroad spike. Before he knows it, he has smashed the investigator's head. If he hurries, he will get back to Los Angeles in time to establish an alibi. But as Lucky will discover, the deadliest threat is lurking within his own mind.

'Dead Man' is just one of the outstanding stories included in this volume. The author of some of the most hard-boiled prose ever written, James M. Cain knew better than anyone the terror of a killer on the run.