Edmund Wilson said this book was at the risk of being 'unintentionally funny' (or something like that). I agree, a lot of comedies are premised on the idea of people being very bad at murder. The couple in this novel really are, even though it is debatable whether Cain wanted this to be funny. There's also a truck full of wild cat animal actors too, which only makes sense when you know Cain was a screenwriter. It's very spare and stylised and the dialogue is great: impossible not to read aloud in one's brain in a matchstick-chewing, breathy voice. Plot-wise, it actually covers a large amount of time, but at the heart of is it the relationship between the central characters, a bored, married waitress and brutish career crim trying to escape their lives together, the story relayed by the latter. It's not 'twisty' if that's what you're after, more like a very compelling extended voice exercise, with real heart.