“Everything about the Leggett diamond heist indicated to the Continental Op that it was an inside job. From the stray diamond found in the yard to the eyewitness accounts of a ‘strange man’ casing the house, everything was just too pat. Gabrielle Dain-Leggett has enough secrets to fill a closet, and when she disappears shortly after the robbery, she becomes the Op’s prime suspect. But her father, Edgar Leggett, keeps some strange company himself and has a dark side the moon would envy. Before he can solve the riddle of the diamond theft, the Continental Op must first solve the mystery of this strange family.”

“Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best…Hammett saw the rotten underbelly and wanted others to see it.”

“Hammett’s heroes are not merely tough; they often confront violence with full knowledge of its inherently corrupting potential.”

“Cool, tough, and hard-boiled in attitude, [Hammett’s] works employ Hemingway’s mood and spare, realistic dialogue in the genre of the detective story.”

“There’s plenty of reason to suppose that Chandler wouldn’t have created Marlowe, Macdonald wouldn’t have created Archer, Nebel wouldn’t have created Donahue, etc., etc., etc., had Hammett not first created the Op.”

“The Op, the durable survivor, just goes about his hired business and underplays his hand before he applies the thumbscrews…unhampered by either imagination or fear.”

“In The Dain Curse the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult.”