Product Description: The Library of America and editor Sarah Weinman redefine the classic era of American crime fiction with a landmark collection of four brilliant novels by the female pioneers of the genre, the women who paved the way for Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Lisa Scottoline...read more

A sick man keeps a secret diary in which he records all the suspicious and highly-charged emotions he ffels for his beautiful young wife. The story reaches its climax when the wife, refusing to lie, admits to one act of infidelity. Her confession induces in her husband fresh ravages of distrust and mental agony. Shortly afterwards he is found dead from suffocation. The police find his diary, and its contents take on a seriousness that his wife could never have imagined.

Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charms—not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Laura’s death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power. Soon he realizes he’s been seduced by a dead woman—or has he?Laurawon lasting renown as an Academy Award-nominated 1944 film, the greatest noir romance of all time. Vera Caspary’s equally haunting novel is remarkable for its stylish, hardboiled writing, its electrifying plot twists, and its darkly complex characters—including a woman who stands as the ultimate femme fatale.