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griddleoctopus's review against another edition
5.0
Spare, laconic and brutal. If he'd written something other than crime...
lilias's review against another edition
3.0
What starts out as mad hot fun in the beginning only fizzles out to a tired old couple of stories in the end. I still recommend the first four or so stories.
mrgale's review against another edition
4.0
That amazing noir prose, marred by a few dodgy plot lines and contemporary probbo belief (one story in chinatown, yikes), but just something like the last of criminal nicknames in the big knockover is charming enough to justify the read alone.
cmleejim's review against another edition
4.0
Plot is tighter than Chandler but the mood doesn't fit well for every story.
meeners's review
5.0
would have given this collection 5 stars for the first story alone. "the gutting of couffignal" is hands down one of hammett's best, and possibly even one of the greatest hardboiled detective stories EVAAAAR. the last story in the collection ("106,000 blood money") is also pretty damn fantastic; liked it even better than "the big knockover."
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