Kristopher Mecholsky is an academic interested in 20th century American fiction and film, specifically noir fiction. He co-wrote a biography of James Cain, with David Madden, while still a graduate student. Hard-boiled Scholar.
 

"Cain displayed both a sort of social consciousness, inspired perhaps by the war, and a characteristic toughness when, in 1946, he set out to organize all the writers in America into an American Authors' Authority, a project that occupied him for several years. Cain approached the project with all of the great energy, sense of authority, arrogance, and drama of one of his characters."

– James M. Cain: Hard-Boiled Mythmaker