The Adventures of Sam Spade and Other Stories -- Dashiell Hammett

"The Adventures of Sam Spade and other stories" is a collection of seven short stories (three of them with Detective Sam Spade), written by American author of detective novels and short stories, screenwriter, and political activist Samuel Dashiell Hammett:

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.