"Hammett's pioneering hard-boiled style has been much imitated, but the original--packs a wallop."--The New Yorker
Here are twenty long-unavailable stories by the master who brought us The Maltese Falcon. Laconic coppers, lowlifes, and mysterious women double- and triple-cross their colleagues with practiced nonchalance. A man on a bender awakens in a small town with a dark mystery at its heart. A woman confronts a brutal truth about her husband. Here is classic noir: hard-boiled descriptions to rival Hemingway, verbal exchanges punctuated with pistol shots and fisticuffs....

Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to pain, Dashiell Hammett's Continetal Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. In these stories the Op unravels a murder with too many clues, looks for a girl with eyes the color of shadows on polished silver, and tangles with a crooked-eared gunman called the Whosis Kid.

Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to physical pain, Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. He is also the hero of most of the nine stories in this volume. The Op's one enthusiasm is doing his job, and in The Big Knockover the jobs entail taking on a gang of modern-day freebooters, a vice-ridden hell's acre in the Arizona desert, and the bank job to end all bank jobs, along with such assorted grifters as Babe McCloor, Bluepoint Vance, Alphabet Shorty McCoy, and the Dis-and-Dat Kid.

Detective-story master Dashiell Hammett gives us yet another unforgettable read in Red Harvest When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.

In Dashiell Hammett's famous crime novel, we meet one of the detective-story master's most enchanting creations, Nick and Nora Charles, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a classic murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

A coolly glittering gem of detective fiction that has haunted three generations of readers, from one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiel Hammett's iconic, influential, and beloved The Maltese Falcon.

A young, frightened, foreign woman appears at the door of an isolated house. The man and woman inside take her in. Other strangers appear in pursuit of the girl. Menace is in the air.
Originally published in 1933, Hammett's Woman in the Dark shows the author at the peak of his narrative powers. With an introduction by Robert B. Parker, the author of the celebrated Spenser novels.

In der Stadt Peaceville, auch Poisonville oder Pissville genannt, greift die Korruption um sich. Donald Willsson, ein Journalist, der die Bestechungsmethoden in Peaceville unerschrocken anprangerte, wird tot aufgefunden. Elihu Willsson, Vater des Ermordeten und mächtigster Mann der Stadt, wendet sich an den Continental Op. Der Detektiv soll herausfinden, wer seinen Sohn getötet hat.

Der Erfinder Clyde Wynant ist verschwunden, und seine Sekretrin Julia Wolf wird ermordet in ihrer Wohnung aufgefunden. Wer ist der Mrder? Wynants Tochter Dorothy? Oder Wynants geschiedene Frau Mimi Jorgensen, die die Sekretrin (und Geliebte) ihres Ex-Mannes gehat hatte? Und wo ist Wynant? Da erhlt Wynants Anwalt Macaulay einen Brief von seinem verschwundenen Mandanten. Nick Charles bernimmt den Fall.

Die attraktive Brigid bittet Sam Spade und seinen Partner Archer um Hilfe, weil sie Angst vor einem gewissen Thursby hat. Am selben Abend wird Archer umgebracht. Auch Thursby taucht als Leiche auf. Spade beginnt ein Verhltnis mit Brigid, obwohl er wei, da sie nicht ehrlich zu ihm ist. Er erfhrt, da sie - und nicht nur sie - hinter einer wertvollen Skulptur aus dem 16. Jahrhundert her ist: dem Malteser Falken.