James M. Cain

James M. Cain wrote crime fiction that helped shape the hardboiled school, and he is best known for The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, both later adapted into films. He also wrote Serenade and Mildred Pierce, and in 1970 he was named a Grand Master by the Edgar Awards. Alongside his novels he worked as a journalist and screenwriter, and he kept publishing into his eighties.