Because I just couldn’t stay away from Hammett…

Length of sentences in the first paragraph of each chapter:

The Body in China Street: 14, 12, 21

The Hat Trick: 33, 27, 19
The Cyclone Shot: 20, 11, 8, 6, 40
The Dog House: 20 (dialogue)
The Hospital: 9 (dialogue)

The Observer: 12, 14 (dialogue)

The Henchmen: 11, 9, 14, 49, 19
The Kiss-Off: 49, 32
The Heels: 35 (dialogue)
The Shattered Key: 4, 13, 12, 6, 6

I also decided to look at Hammett’s initial descriptions of each character. (Do whatever you like with this data. It’s too early in the morning for my mind to be functioning properly.)

I plotted each one so you can see the individual trends, then stuck them all on one graph for comparison.

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**One interesting thing that I ran into is that both Ned and Janet aren’t really given formal, initial descriptions, unlike the other characters. This suggests (once again) that Ned and Janet are on equal footing not only in terms of intellect, but also as far as Hammett’s attitude toward them is concerned. They are both treated as main characters by omission of the usual introductions.