The Glass Key

　　他們搭計程車到他的住處，一路大半都沉默著。忽然之間，她開口說：「在那個夢裡－我一直沒告訴你－那雙鑰匙是玻璃的，門打開的時候，鑰匙就在我們手裡碎掉了，因為鎖很緊，我們不得不用力。我們無法把那些蛇關在裡面，於是，牠們全都跑出來，將我們淹沒了。

　　Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.

　　A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel.  This classic Hammet work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.