Galatea

Book excerpt: A down-on-his-luck boxing trainer finds a woman worth fighting for in this “assured” novel by an MWA Grand Master Award winner (Kirkus Reviews). It took some doing, but Duke Webster is out of prison. Val Valenty arranged the parole, and now the onetime prizefighter and boxing coach is his puppet, breaking his back on Valenty’s farm in exchange for a pittance. But Valenty is about to find out that boxing men never take orders without a scrap. The trouble begins when Webster meets Valenty’s wife. A barrel-shaped woman whose extreme weight makes her old before her time, Holly stays fat on Valenty’s cooking—meat, potatoes, and endless gravy. Webster puts her on a diet, slimming her down the way he would train an over-the-hill pro in search of a comeback. But as her waistline shrinks and her beauty emerges, Valenty gets jealous—putting them on course for a bloody confrontation where only the hungry will survive. This gritty, surprising tale comes from the acclaimed author of Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce—a writer with “an empathy for losers and society’s lost souls” (Quad-City Times). Praise for James M. Cain’s fiction “Cain is one novelist who has something to teach just about any writer, and delight just about any reader.” —Anne Rice, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Interview with a Vampire “Entertaining and cleverly plotted.” —The New York Times