The Institute

James M. Cain

Jan 2013 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

An academic looking for money finds a woman and trouble instead
Professor Lloyd Palmer loves a good biography. His fantasy is to start an institute to teach young scholars the biographical arts, and it will take old money to make his dreams come true. Around Washington, the oldest money is found not in the District, but in Delaware, a land of wealth so astonishing that even the Du Ponts are considered nouveau riche. But when the professor goes to Wilmington, he comes away not with old money, but young trouble. Her name is Hortense Garrett. She is his benefactor's wife, a twenty-something beauty trapped in an unhappy marriage, whose good looks conceal the most cunning mind this side of the Potomac. She needs a ride to Washington, and Lloyd offers to give her a lift. They've barely left Delaware before he falls for her. By the time they hit the Beltway, his biography will be in her hands.

About the author

Mystery writer James Mallahan Cain was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Washington College, and served in the military as editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the 79th Division, American Expeditionary Forces. Cain worked as a staff reporter for the Baltimore Sun; he became a professor of journalism in the 1920s; he worked as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1930s and 40s. Many of his stories, including Double Indemnity (1943), have been made into successful films. Joan Crawford won an Academy Award in 1945 for her portrayal of Cain's Mildred Pierce (1941). Cain's first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), was said to have inspired Albert Camus' The Stranger, but offended sensibilities in the U.S. and was even tried for obscenity in Boston. The novel was eventually made into a movie in 1946, starring Lana Turner and again in 1981, with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. In all, Cain authored eighteen books.