Contents: -Too many have lived -They can only hang you once -A man called Spade -The assistant murderer -Night shade -The judge laughed last -His brother's keeper
Hammett knew how to write stories. No messing about, just the facts. He recorded a dark world, where everyone was on the take, and towns were run in the interests of the criminally inclined. He allows that world to tell its own story, without any of the characters telling you what to think about it. Hammett here proves his mastery of the short story and novella form in hard-boiled detective fiction.