An enigmatic figure, Cain was born George Sims in Iowa, and grew up in Chicago. He moved to Los Angeles aged eighteen and became a scriptwriter, but little else is known of his early life, making his exotic account of travelling the world as a bosun's mate, Dadaist painter and professional gambler impossible to verify. In 1932, as Paul Cain, he submitted a story to the famous crime magazine, Black Mask and, after  writing a further four stories, put these together to produce his only novel, the extraordinary Fast One. Praised by Raymond Chandler as 'some kind of high point in the ultra hardboiled manner', Fast One is an absolute classic, with its frenzied action depicted in staccato prose. Gunman, gambler and big drinker Gerry Kells arrives in 1930s Los Angeles with $2,000 and a reputation as a very tough guy. As he muscles his way into the LA rackets, he teams up with the beautiful, equally bibulous S. Grandquist, her past as mysterious as her first name, and together they take on rival gangs, before bringing down the curtain in a booze-fuelled explosion of violence and death.

After penning stories for other pulp magazines, as well as several more for Black Mask, some of which were subsequently collected and published in 1946 as Seven Slayers (his only other book), Cain returned to writing screenplays under the name Peter Ruric. These included scripts for The Black Cat, directed by B-movie maestro Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and Mademoiselle Fifi, adapted from two Guy de Maupassant stories and produced by Val Lewton, the man behind Cat People and other low budget chillers. Cain wrote articles and television scripts before succumbing to cancer in 1966, but never again produced anything as powerful as Fast One.

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on Custom Reports at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to Custom Reports and other relevant topics.