The Giant Collection Of The Continental Op

Download or read book The Giant Collection of the Continental Op written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential tales from the files of San Francisco’s hard-bitten, prototypical PI—penned by the undisputed “master of the detective novel” (The Boston Globe). Before Dashiell Hammett introduced such iconic sleuths as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man, he put to work the most influential detective ever to scour America’s hard-boiled literary landscape. An operative of San Francisco’s Continental Detective Agency, the Continental Op was a world-weary, pragmatic, and inelegant company man—and though always nameless, he has remained as distinctive as a fingerprint. Informed by Hammett’s own work with the Pinkertons, the twenty-three stories collected here—originally published between 1923 and 1930—introduced a bracing, jaded, dry-witted realism to the genre. Written with “the precision of a diamond cutter,” they are seminal masterworks in the legacy of a genuine original (Newsweek).

Download or read book The Big Book of the Continental Op written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now for the first time ever in one volume, all twenty-eight stories and two serialized novels starring the Continental Op—one of the greatest characters in storied history of detective fiction. Dashiell Hammett is the father of modern hard-boiled detective stories. His legendary works have been lauded for almost one hundred years by fans, and his novel The Maltese Falcon was adapted into a classic film starring Humphrey Bogart. One of Dashiell Hammett's most memorable characters, the Continental Op made his debut in Black Mask magazine on October 1, 1923, narrating the first of twenty-eight stories and two novels that would change forever the face of detective fiction. The Op is a tough, wry, unglamorous gumshoe who has inspired a following that is both global and enduring. He has been published in periodicals, paperback digests, and short story collections, but until now, he has never, in all his ninety-two years, had the whole of his exploits contained in one book. The book features all twenty-eight of the original standalone Continental Op stories, the original serialized versions of Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, and previously unpublished material. This anthology of Continental Op stories is the only complete, one-volume work of its kind.

Download or read book Nightmare Town written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty long-unavailable stories by Dashiell Hammett, the author of The Maltese Falcon and the incomparable master of detective fiction. In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town and ends up unraveling the dark mystery at its heart. A woman confronts the brutal truth about her husband in the chilling story "Ruffian's Wife." "His Brother's Keeper" is a half-wit boxer's eulogy to the brother who betrayed him. "The Second-Story Angel" recounts one of the most novel cons ever devised. In seven stories, the tough and taciturn Continental Op takes on a motley collection of the deceitful, the duped, and the dead, and once again shows his uncanny ability to get at the truth. In three stories, Sam Spade confronts the darkness in the human soul while rolling his own cigarettes. And the first study for The Thin Man sends John Guild on a murder investigation in which almost every witness may be lying. In Nightmare Town, Dashiell Hammett, America's poet laureate of the dispossessed, shows us a world where people confront a multitude of evils. Whether they are trying to right wrongs or just trying to survive, all of them are rendered with Hammett's signature gifts for sharp-edged characters and blunt dialogue. Hammett said that his ambition was to elevate mystery fiction to the level of art. This collection of masterful stories clearly illustrates Hammett's success, and shows the remarkable range and variety of the fiction he produced.

Download or read book The Continental Op written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 1989-07-17 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Creeping Siamese and Other Stories written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether chasing hoodlums or solving impossible murders, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op is one of the toughest detectives in the history of crime fiction The Continental Op is going over his expense reports when a raw-boned man staggers through the door of his office, stretches out his arms, and dies. As the stranger falls to the floor, he utters a final word: Hell. It’s apt, because this man’s death will drag the Op right into the inferno. The contents of the man’s pockets are enough to send the Op off in search of his identity, his connection to San Francisco, and the treacherous underworld dealings of both the victim and his killers. The Continental Op made his name taking punches and dodging bullets, but unraveling “The Creeping Siamese” is the kind of mystery that will baffle even him. This story, along with “The Big Knock-Over” and “$106,000 Blood Money,” is a testament to the enduring genius of Dashiell Hammett.

Download or read book Corkscrew and Other Stories written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the sands of Arizona to the alleys of the Tenderloin, the Continental Op deals out rough justice, in this collection of short stories from master of noir fiction Dashiell Hammett In the Arizona desert, the sun’s high, the heat’s relentless, and there’s murder in the air. Across this long stretch of sunbaked hell, one town stands out as the worst of all. Someone is killing the cowboys of Corkscrew, and Continental Op has been hired to stop the slaughter. From the moment he rides into town, he tastes dust on his teeth and blood in the wind. The locals have no respect for this hardboiled San Francisco detective, so it’s up to the Op to show them he deserves his badge. But before peace can come to Corkscrew, more men will die. A portrait of a tough man in a rough town, “Corkscrew” offers a taste of Dashiell Hammett’s first novel, the legendary epic of hardboiled violence Red Harvest. Along with the other stories in this volume—“Dead Yellow Women” and “The Gutting of Couffignal”—it shows Hammett and his infamous Continental Op at the top of their forms.

Download or read book Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Continental Op delves into his violent past and avenges a murdered partner in this collection of stories from master of hardboiled fiction Dashiell Hammett When he joins the Continental Detective Agency, Bob Teal shows every sign of becoming a crack operative. Cool headed, quick witted, and not afraid to take a punch, Teal’s on the verge of a great career when a .32 cuts him down. Two bullets are enough to kill Teal and to set the Continental Op chasing the tangled tale that lead to his demise. In “Who Killed Bob Teal?” Dashiell Hammett experimented with a premise that he would later repurpose in his most famous novel: The Maltese Falcon. But while Sam Spade is devilishly tough, the Continental Op is even tougher. And in this titular story, as well as “The Whosis Kid” and “The Scorched Face,” the Op pursues Bay-area underworld operators with the deep wrath of a San Francisco earthquake.