and "There's three kinds of killers. There's the nuts, there's the dumb ones, and the ones who are special. We never use the dumb ones, and we leave out the nuts 'cause their trigger fingers get itchy. The special ones come high but they're worth it... and "Sam Jordan was a special one. He'd grown up in a rough school - back lots, bowling alleys, running petty errands for crooks - and he'd learned his trade well. He'd honed his nerves down to a fine taut edge and turned himself into a ruthless precision machine for killing - a cold-blooded automaton who dealt out controlled violence. Until one day he was sent out on a job he knew was wrong from the beginning. But by then it was too late.Peter Rabe has written a classic tale of criminal violence that takes the hardboiled thriller one step beyond Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and gives it new shape and direction.