
The Cocktail Waitress
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Amy Rubinate
-
By:
-
James M. Cain
About this listen
Grieving widow or black widow?
The day Joan Medford buried her husband was a fateful one - because before the day was out she'd meet the two men who would change her life forever. Forced to take a job waitressing to support herself and her child, Joan finds herself caught between the handsome young schemer whose touch she comes to crave and the wealthy older man whose touch repels her… but who otherwise would make a tempting husband number two. It's a classic Cain triangle - brutal and sexual and stark - that can only end in death. But for whom, the guilty…or the innocent?
The final novel written by James M. Cain and never before published, The Cocktail Waitress is a testament to the enduring power of one of the most acclaimed novelists of the 20th century. The author of unforgettable noir classics such as Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain's work remains as impossible to put down today as when first written, and will leave even jaded modern readers breathless.
©2012 The Estate of James M. Cain (P)2012 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
Double Indemnity
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 3 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1936, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.
-
-
Morals be gone
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 10-31-11
By: James M. Cain
-
The Postman Always Rings Twice
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Stanley Tucci
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.
-
-
Tucci's performance of "Postman" is exquisite!
- By Christopher on 06-25-12
By: James M. Cain
-
Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
-
-
Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
-
The Black Dahlia
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
-
-
Great naration
- By Grasshopper.Craig on 09-10-06
By: James Ellroy
-
Noir
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Moore
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It's love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an air force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. 'Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he's got the connections on the street.
-
-
A Laugh Riot, Inconsistently Delivered
- By Maggie May on 04-18-18
-
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age - The '20s, '30s & '40s (Big Book Series)
- By: Otto Penzler
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May, Traci Odom, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 73 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Containing over 47 stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train - a bullet couldn't pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes.
-
-
Such a great collection!!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-20
By: Otto Penzler
-
Double Indemnity
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 3 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1936, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.
-
-
Morals be gone
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 10-31-11
By: James M. Cain
-
The Postman Always Rings Twice
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Stanley Tucci
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.
-
-
Tucci's performance of "Postman" is exquisite!
- By Christopher on 06-25-12
By: James M. Cain
-
Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
-
-
Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
-
The Black Dahlia
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
-
-
Great naration
- By Grasshopper.Craig on 09-10-06
By: James Ellroy
-
Noir
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Moore
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It's love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an air force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. 'Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he's got the connections on the street.
-
-
A Laugh Riot, Inconsistently Delivered
- By Maggie May on 04-18-18
-
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age - The '20s, '30s & '40s (Big Book Series)
- By: Otto Penzler
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May, Traci Odom, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 73 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Containing over 47 stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train - a bullet couldn't pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes.
-
-
Such a great collection!!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-20
By: Otto Penzler
-
Joyland
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Michael Kelly
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever. Joyland is a brand-new novel and has never previously been published.
-
-
King in his Summer Finest
- By Cynthia on 06-06-13
By: Stephen King
-
Devil in a Blue Dress
- An Easy Rawlins Mystery
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
-
-
Beware of Mysterious Sexy Women with Big Suitcases
- By Jefferson on 02-13-11
By: Walter Mosley
-
Naked in Death
- In Death, Book 1
- By: J. D. Robb
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she’s seen it all - and knows her survival depends on her instincts. And she’s going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire - and a suspect in Eve’s murder investigation.
-
-
Don't Judge the Series by the First Book!
- By Fee on 03-10-12
By: J. D. Robb
-
Five Decembers
- By: James Kestrel
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. The trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 10-10-22
By: James Kestrel
-
Once upon a Time in Hollywood
- A Novel
- By: Quentin Tarantino
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jason Leigh
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited first work of fiction - at once hilarious, delicious, and brutal - is the always surprising, sometimes shocking new novel based on his Academy Award-winning film.
-
-
Great Book Ruined by Leigh
- By Scott Wilson on 06-30-21
-
The Twilight World
- A Novel
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, Whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former soldier famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and met many times, talking and unraveling the story of Onoda’s long war.
-
-
Herzog finds his perfect subject
- By Mihal Ceittin on 06-27-22
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
New York Dead
- Stone Barrington, Book 1
- By: Stuart Woods
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone is always telling Stone Barrington that he’s too smart to be a cop, but it’s pure luck that places him on the streets in the dead of night, just in time to witness the horrifying incident that turns his life inside out. Suddenly he is on the front page of every New York newspaper and his life is hopelessly entwined in the increasingly shocking life (and perhaps death) of Sasha Nijinsky, the country’s hottest and most beautiful television anchorwoman.
-
-
Ridiculous
- By laall on 11-11-13
By: Stuart Woods
-
I, the Jury
- By: Mickey Spillane
- Narrated by: Mike Dennis
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here's Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer in their roughest and readiest—a double-strength shot of sex, violence, and action that is vintage Spillane all the way. It's a tough-guy mystery to please even the most bloodthirsty of fans!
-
-
read this one for what it is
- By Midwestbonsai on 07-08-16
By: Mickey Spillane
-
This Sweet Sickness
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Tony Pasqualini
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In This Sweet Sickness, David Kelsey has an unyielding conviction that life will turn out all right for him; he just has to fix "the situation" of being in love with a married woman. Obsessed with Annabelle and the life he has imagined for them, David prepares to win her over, whatever it takes. In this riveting tale of a deluded loner, Highsmith reveals her uncanny ability to draw out the secret obsessions that overwhelm the human heart.
-
-
Highly recommended!
- By nancy on 10-11-18
-
The Gin Lovers
- The Serial
- By: Jamie Brenner
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1925, and the Victorian era, with its confining morals, is all but dead. Unfortunately for New York socialite Charlotte Delacorte, the scandalous flapper revolution is little more than a headline in the tabloids. She lives her rigid and controlling husband, William, but her Fifth Avenue townhouse is a gilded cage. But when William's rebellious younger sister, the beautiful and brash Mae, comes to live with them after the death of their mother, Charlotte finds entrée to a world beyond her wildest dreams - and a handsome and mysterious stranger.
-
-
Great book!!!
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-22
By: Jamie Brenner
-
A Single Thread
- The Cobbled Court Series, Book 1
- By: Marie Bostwick
- Narrated by: Pam Ward, Lorna Raver
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marie Bostwick weaves the unforgettable story of four very different women whose paths cross, changing their lives forever. It’s a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, to New Bern, Connecticut, yet it only takes a day in the charming Yankee town to make Evelyn Dixon realize she’s found her new home. The abrupt end of her marriage was Evelyn’s wake-up call to get busy chasing her dream of opening a quilt shop. Finding a storefront is easy enough; starting a new life isn’t....
-
-
Christian oriented fiction
- By Ruth Lambert on 04-07-16
By: Marie Bostwick
-
Weekend Warriors
- Sisterhood, Book 1
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...
-
-
Weekend Warriors
- By Ms Mare on 04-04-09
By: Fern Michaels
What made the experience of listening to The Cocktail Waitress the most enjoyable?
THE STORY TOOK A LONG TIME TO GET GOING BUT IT GOT VERY ENJOYABLE ONCE JOAN BECAME INVOLVED WITH MR. WHITE.What other book might you compare The Cocktail Waitress to and why?
IT REMINDS ME MORE OF A SONG. BILLY JOEL'S "LYING EYES" THAN ANOTHER BOOK.What about Amy Rubinate’s performance did you like?
SHE WAS EASY TO LISTEN TO.Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
IN SEVERAL SITTINGS.Any additional comments?
I WISH THE ENDING WAS BETTER. I FELT CHEATED. BUT THE BOOK WAS ENTERTAINING.THE ENDING FELL SHORT.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good Listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Entertaining.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
gripping story excellent narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Reader was great
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Would you listen to The Cocktail Waitress again? Why?
probably notWhat was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
i really was really enjoying the story but the ending was very disapointing - at least to me it was. Kind of left my hanging waiting for more.What does Amy Rubinate bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The way she read was kind of monatone - which added to the mystery of the story. I liked the was she narrated it.Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
yesdisappointing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
interesting
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Any additional comments?
World view and attitudes of characters are like the (I think 1940s) black and white movies, which I enjoyed. But it does not come across as enjoyable to me in text form. I guess the movies with the black and white, classic actors, hair styles, cars, etc of the era allow you to identify with the characters mindsets and situations so you can enjoy the story in it's context. In text torm without all the visual and audio world building of the times, too much seems silly from a point of view of today and it just didn't work for me.Not for me
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.