Nick Papadakis

The restaurant owner whom Frank and Cora turn into an obstacle.

What they want

To keep his restaurant, his wife, and the comfortable arrangement he believes he built.

The book

The Postman Always Rings TwiceJames M. Cain, 1934

A roadside affair becomes a murder plan, and getting away with it proves more dangerous than guilt.

Spoiler-free

Nick owns Twin Oaks and readily gives Frank food and work.

He treats Cora as wife, employee, and possession.

Readers know him through Frank, whose contempt shapes every description.

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

What happens to Nick PapadakisHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Nick survives the bathroom attack but is killed in a staged car crash.

Four books that share themes, tone, or setting with this one.

Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.

Charles Bukowski
American poet and novelist of Los Angeles rooming houses, racetracks and the post office, who quit his job to write when a publisher offered him a hundred dollars a month. He came to Paris once, in September 1978, drank his way through a live television book programme and walked off the set — and French television has been replaying it ever since.
View author
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author