The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (2005, Unabridged, Compact Disc)

Sometimes those oldsters who say, “They just don’t make things the way they used to” are absolutely right. James Cain’s classic suspense story is a case in point. All of this dark, steamy novel’s characters may be fueled by lust, selfishness, and violence, but Cain’s spare prose sketches their mixed motives with such blurry deftness that his readers sit on edge, not quite knowing what is happening or whom, if anyone, they can trust, until the very last words of the novel. And only afterwards might they notice that Cain held them in complete thrall without any of the gratuitous sex and large-scale violence that characterize today’s murder thrillers. Stanley Tucci’s straightforward, low-key performance as narrator gives nothing away, so that Cain’s “Postman” can truly deliver.