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A review by batbones
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett
4.0
"You've got a flighty mind. That's no good in this business. You don't catch murderers by amusing yourself with interesting thoughts. You've got to sit down to all the facts you can get and turn them over and over until they click."
Sometimes too-eager and over-dramatic state of events are counterpointed by the nameless continental op's levelheadedness and good nature. There's a coy chapter (18) in which a detective and a novelist discuss the appropriateness of a person's disposition to the calling of sleuth, and that comes closest to a nudge-and-wink without Hammett tacitly acknowledging it as meta-commentary.
Sometimes too-eager and over-dramatic state of events are counterpointed by the nameless continental op's levelheadedness and good nature. There's a coy chapter (18) in which a detective and a novelist discuss the appropriateness of a person's disposition to the calling of sleuth, and that comes closest to a nudge-and-wink without Hammett tacitly acknowledging it as meta-commentary.