Nightmare town -- House dick -- Ruffian's wife -- The man who killed Dan Odams -- Night shots -- Zigzags of treachery -- The assistant murderer -- His brother's keeper -- Two sharp knives -- Death on pine street -- The second-story angel -- Afraid of a gun -- Tom, Dick, or Harry -- One hour -- Who killed Bob Teal? -- A man called Spade -- Too many have lived -- They can only hang you once -- A man named Thin -- The first thin man.

"In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town and ends up unraveling the dark mystery at its heart. A woman confronts the brutal truth about her husband in the chilling story "Ruffian's Wife." "His Brother's Keeper" is a half-wit boxer's eulogy to the brother who betrayed him. "The Second-Story Angel" recounts one of the most novel cons ever devised. In seven stories, the tough and taciturn Continental Op takes on a motley collection of the deceitful, the duped, and the dead, and once again shows his uncanny ability to get at the truth. In three stories, Sam Spade confronts the darkness in the human soul while rolling his own cigarettes. And the first study for The Thin Man sends John Guild on a murder investigation in which almost every witness may be lying."--Jacket.