Dashiell Hammett is universally regarded as one of the finest American writers of ‘hard boiled’ detective fiction and his short stories and novels have been hailed as some of the best mystery stories ever written. Hammett would doubtless have gone down in literary history simply for his creation of the detective Sam Spade (‘The Maltese Falcon’) as well as Nick and Nora Charles (‘The Thin Man’ series), but he is also the creator of another of the most popular detectives in fiction: the nameless private investigator known as the Continental Op, who appears in dozens of his stories.
Collected here is the complete collection of Dashiell Hammett’s short fiction (though, in fairness, it seems that a old, forgotten story is unearthed every few years and added to the canon). Volume I contains Hammett’s earliest stories, written from 1922 through 1924 (mostly for Black Mask magazine), including the first few Continental Op stories.
Thrilling, brutal, spine-tingling and just plain brilliant, no mystery collection would be complete without the complete works of the master of the genre: Dashiell Hammett.
About the author
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for his ‘hard-boiled’ detective fiction and the iconic characters he created for his books, including the Continental Op (Red Harvest and the Dain Curse), Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), and Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man). Hammett is considered one of the finest mystery/detective writers of the 20th century. As a young man, Hammett signed up to be an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, but the agency’s role in strike-breaking soured Hammett to Pinkerton and he joined the Army in 1918 and served in World War I. While in the Army, Hammett contracted tuberculosis and the ill-effects of his consumption would plague Hammett for the rest of his life. In 1922, Hammett began to publish short stories in some of the popular mystery magazines of the era, particularly Black Mask, for whom he wrote a number of stories featuring his nameless private investigator, the Continental Op. He began producing these stories at a furious rate, eventually expanding into novels – Red Harvest and The Dain Curse – which he serialized in Black Mask prior to publication. In 1930, Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, which featured Sam Spade, one of the most popular characters in all of detective fiction. Then, in 1934, Hammett topped himself, creating Nick and Nora Charles, the protagonists of the wildly popular book The Thin Man. Both would later be adapted into successful motion pictures, the latter spawning five sequels. Once Hammett moved to Hollywood and began writing screenplays, his fiction writing almost entirely ceased. His activism in left-wing politics would eventually lead to Hammett being placed on the ‘blacklist.’ Hammett’s career troubles were exacerbated by his alcoholism and his drinking, in turn, worsened his health. He died of lung cancer in 1961.Despite his life and career struggles later in life, Dashiell Hammett is still considered one of the greatest mystery writers of all time and his work proved to be an inspiration to an entire generation of young authors from Ernest Hemingway to Raymond Chandler and many others.
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