Dashiell Hammett

One of the most popular American writers of the twentieth century, Dashiell Hammett gave us crime fiction stripped down to its most subtle and searing essentials and, at the same time, elevated to literature. The diamond-sharp prose and artfully manipulated intrigue for which he is known are on full display in the four classic short stories and two riveting novels published here in one volume. The Continental Op, Hammett's anonymous antihero, was the indelible prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. Single-minded, emotionally detached, and decidedly unglamorous, he narrates the four linked stories collected here--"The House in Turk Street," "The Girl with the Silver Eyes," "The Big Knockover," and "$106,000 Blood Money." In THE DAIN CURSE, the Continental Op takes on his most bizarre case, that of a wealthy young woman who appears to be the victim of a deadly family curse. And THE GLASS KEY--Hammett's own favorite among his works--features his most cynical and morally ambiguous hero, Ned Beaumont, caught in a hard-boiled love triangle.

A ravishingly illustrated version of Dashiell Hammett's Fly Paper--his first truly hard-boiled story--with over two hundred water-based monochromes, that reimagine and recreate in unexpected ways the unsettling atmosphere and sensibility of Hammett's tale. Hans Hillmann (1925-2014) was a German graphic illustrator and teacher, widely known for the 130 movie posters he designed between 1953 and 1974 that accompanied the release in Germany of many of the most important postwar films by internationally celebrated directors such as Bu uel, Bergman, Eisenstein, Huston, Hitchcock, and Godard. In 1974, Hillmann became obsessed with the idea of making a film on paper based on Hammett's story about a wealthy young girl who runs away from her family to live the hard and fast life, and the Continental Detective Agency operative who's hired to find her. That project would consume seven years of his life would include traveling to the United States, photographing and drawing many of the locations and neighborhoods in San Francisco that Hammett frequented. The result is this extraordinary book: the realistically rendered surfaces of the interiors and streetscapes only a thin facade on the distorting and menacing shadows and phantasmagoric motifs that brilliantly evoke the psychological and emotional undercurrents of Hammett's story. INTRODUCTION BY ART SPIEGELMANPART OF THE PANTHEON GRAPHIC LIBRARY

Dashiell Hammett's influential detective novel, ranked one of Time Magazine's best mystery and thriller books of all time, now freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Editions line. Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance-a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade's new client Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. This cat-and-mouse thriller has haunted readers for generations and inspired multiple adaptations including the iconic 1941 film of the same name starring Humphry Bogart and the 2024 AMC drama, Monsieur Spade, starring Clive Owen.

The Maltese Falcon is the archetypal 'hardboiled' detective story, rich in intriguing characters, dark exciting action and featuring the greatest of all cool, tough private eyes, Sam Spade. Written in 1930, the novel has a timeless quality that makes it fresh and exciting for each new generation of readers.Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, cloth-bound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Sam Spade is hired by the alluring Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with ne-er do well Floyd Thursby. But when Spade's partner Miles Archer is murdered while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the mythical jewel-encrusted Falcon, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man and how far can he trust the seductive Miss Wonderley? Dashiel Hammett's noir classic is written in sharp, terse prose that gives a cinematic vividness to the characters and their milieu.

Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is more than a mystery: it is a seminal work that defined a genre, a tough, unflinching portrait of a hard-nosed private eye navigating a treacherous landscape, culminating in a shocking cliff-hanger that has left readers dangling for nearly a century. What happened to the falcon? The Poltroon Press edition of this classic detective novel supplies the answer with a new coda comprised of two linked short stories by Mark Coggins. Coggins, who is a photographer as well as a crime fiction writer, also contributes twenty-two scene-setting black and white photographs from modern-day San Francisco to illustrate the volume. Prepare now to enter-or reenter-the world of Samuel Spade. A knight-errant on the fog-shrouded streets of 1920s San Francisco, he isn't afraid to bend a few rules to meet his clients' needs. But he's never had a client quite like the breathtaking Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a damsel in distress whose story doesn't quite add up. When Spade's partner, Miles Archer, insists on handling the case himself-and promptly winds up dead-Spade becomes a prime suspect in his murder. Sucked into a whirlpool of deceit and double-cross, he must navigate a precarious path between the police and a shadowy cast of out-of-towners who've come to believe he can deliver a magnificent jeweled falcon from the time of the Crusades.

The Maltese Falcon is a fast-paced, morally complex detective novel that helped define the hard-boiled genre. It introduced the world to Sam Spade, the quintessential private eye - cool, cynical, and guided by his own personal code of justice. Hammett's prose is crisp, unsentimental, and cinematic, marked by sharp dialogue and psychological realism. The Maltese Falcon elevated detective fiction from pulp entertainment to serious literature, influencing generations of crime writers - notably Raymond Chandler. It was adapted into several films, most famously the 1941 version directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade - a role that defined Bogart's screen persona and the entire film noir style.

"When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it." --Sam Spade A physically menacing character--"he looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan"--Detective Sam Spade is a lone wolf with an ambiguous moral compass. When his partner gets killed during a tense stakeout, he's plunged headfirst into an entangled web of deceit, greed, and murder involving an extraordinary treasure with a shady backstory--the Maltese Falcon, a priceless bejeweled bird. Dashiell Hammett was a master of hard-boiled fiction, revolutionizing American detective stories with the archetypal tough guy character: aloof, sharp, and relentless. Hammett's classic gumshoe mysteries reflected the gritty realism of his own turbulent life, from wartime experiences and political activism in the post-WWI Red Scare to a stint as a Pinkerton detective. His groundbreaking work reshaped crime writing, blurring the lines between hero and villain and transporting generations of readers into a noir world filled with betrayal and corruption.

Welcome to Personville-locals call it "Poisonville"-a town so corrupt it's choking on its own blood. When the Continental Op, a hard-nosed private detective, arrives to clean things up, he plunges into a storm of gangsters, crooked politicians, and double-crossing dames. But the deeper he digs, the bloodier the harvest becomes. With relentless pacing, razor-sharp dialogue, and a moral compass as gray as the skies over Poisonville, Red Harvest is a brutal masterpiece of American noir. This is Dashiell Hammett at his most raw and ruthless, a gritty tale of justice torn from the barrel of a gun. If you like your heroes uncompromising and your crime fiction mean, lean, and soaked in danger-Red Harvest delivers a bulletproof classic.

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author widely recognized as the trailblazer of hard-boiled detective fiction with his unsentimental, breakneck storytelling chock-full of fast-paced, slangy dialogue and abrupt, explosive violence. Following hot on the heels of his 1929 debut novel Red Harvest, Hammett published his sophomore shoot-'em-up The Dain Curse that same year, wherein his Continental Op is on the bizarre case of a San Francisco diamond heist that stinks of an inside job and whose prime suspect is Gabrielle Dain-Leggett: a young, wealthy socialite with a taste for morphine and religious cults, believed to be suffering from the curse of the mad Dains, and who has a tragic effect on everyone around her - they die violently.

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author widely recognized as the trailblazer of hard-boiled detective fiction with his unsentimental, breakneck storytelling chock-full of fast-paced, slangy dialogue and abrupt, explosive violence. Following hot on the heels of his 1929 debut novel Red Harvest, Hammett published his sophomore shoot-'em-up The Dain Curse that same year, wherein his Continental Op is on the bizarre case of a San Francisco diamond heist that stinks of an inside job and whose prime suspect is Gabrielle Dain-Leggett: a young, wealthy socialite with a taste for morphine and religious cults, believed to be suffering from the curse of the mad Dains, and who has a tragic effect on everyone around her - they die violently.