I had a great time reading this collection. My favorites in it were:
+ Nightmare Town, the titular novella about a corrupt desert town and two people who try to escape it.
+ "Ruffian's Wife," a short story about a woman who loses confidence in her husband when he turns out to not be the big, bad tough guy she believes him to be.
+ "The Man Who Killed Dan Odoms," a short story about a man seeking sanctuary on a remote farm as he hides from people who want to avenge the man he killed.
+ "The Second-Story Angel," a short story about a writer who gets a surprise visitor in the middle of the night, then learns something even more surprising about her a few weeks later.
+ "Tom, Dick, or Harry," a short story about a robbery that has a really cool twist on the identity of the robber.
+ "A Man Called Spade," a short story featuring Sam Spade, the detective from The Maltese Falcon, and has him solve a murder that seems to be open-and-shut, but isn't.
Particularly Good Bits:
...where knowledge of trickery is evenly distributed, honesty not infrequently prevails (Nightmare Town, p. 15).
I don't like eloquence: if it isn't effective enough to pierce your hide, it's tiresome; and if it is effective enough, then it muddles your thoughts ("Zigzags of Treachery," p. 99).
Ninety-nine per cent of detective work is a patient collecting of details -- and your details must be got as nearly first-hand as possible, regardless of who else has worked the territory before you ("One Hour," p. 253).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for lots of different kinds of violence, some light and occasional bad language, and the occasional oblique reference to sexual activity in a non-descriptive and non-titillating way.
This is my 17th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.
