Okay, maybe this is just the orange juice (vodka) talking but the whole cannibalism tangent near the beginning was just weird—yes, it’s fascinating, but still weird. Imagine a Billy Wilder film noir feature (e.g. Sunset Boulevard) with eight minutes of Dario Argento (e.g. Suspiria) inexplicably spliced in. Yes we all enjoyed the excursion, but it had no earthly connection to the plot. None. Nada. Zilch. WTF Hammett??
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“So Charles pulls down a volume from the shelf, and has the boy read a section about Alfred Packer, who may or may not have killed and eaten his companions in the Rockies in 1873… And then the plot resumes and everyone goes on, and no mention of it was ever made again, and I'm left asking - what was THAT all about?” ~Jeff Grubb, The Cannibal and the Thin Man, 2012

“The murders in the book aren't too descriptive, particularly in comparison with today's standards… It is the four page story about cannibalism in the United States that Wynant's son Gilbert reads that pushes the violence into the moderate zone. Why Hammett felt this part was important to the story plot I'll never know…” ~Sara M., Library Hospital, 2009
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NOTE: This cannibal conundrum is mostly tongue-in-cheek (pun intended).