The Cocktail Waitress

The Cocktail Waitress
Cover of the first edition
AuthorJames M. Cain
LanguageEnglish
GenreHardboiled novel
PublisherHard Case Crime
Publication date
2012
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
ISBN978-1-78116-032-9

The Cocktail Waitress is a novel by James M. Cain published posthumously in 2012 by Hard Case Crime press.

The last of Cain's novels, this so-called "lost" work was assembled from a number of undated manuscripts by archivist and novelist Charles Ardai.

The Cocktail Waitress resembles Cain's 1941 novel Mildred Pierce in plot and theme, but, in contrast, employs a first-person point-of-view to tell the tragic story of heroine Joan Medford rather than the third-person narration he used in the earlier work.