James M. Cain. 
 
Grosset & Dunlap: 1934. Later edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Soiling, sunning, and small tears on the fading of the jacket. Chipping along the top and bottom of the jacket, especially the corners and folds. Bumping on the crown and heel of the spine. Leaves are sunned. 187 pages. Very good. 
 
The Lana Turner movie of Postman was produced by the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and MGM had a show library of books important to their history. This is the copy that was in that library. That 1930s cover, the red and black of damnation, lets you know it's of the quipping, hard boiled noir genre that Cain perfected and MGM put to good use. 
 
“'You must be a hell cat, though. You couldn’t make me feel like this if you weren’t.'”