Le sac de Couffignal

Until recently, I'd never actually read any Dashiell Hammett, though I loved The Thin Man movie (and found The Maltese Falcon a bit dull). Le Sac de Couffignal ("The Gutting of Couffignal") is the translation of three Hammett stories. The first two are mysteries, and I can't say I find anything particularly remarkable about them--probably, unfortunately, because my limited aptitude in French is good enough to follow the plot but not enough to really appreciate Hammett's famously terse prose. The third story ("Tulip") is actually an unfinished novel and probably the last thing Hammett wrote before he died--best I could make out is that a famous writer (representing Hammett) is visited by an old war buddy and they share long, rambling, and relatively boring conversations about life and literature. My favorite part of the collection is the lengthy postscript by Lillian Hellman, Hammett's lover for thirty years. Hellman's account of Hammett's iconoclastic personality, struggles with the government, and eventual death from lung cancer are interesting and poignant.