Authors: Dashiell Hammett, Steven Marcus
ISBN-13: 9780679722588, ISBN-10: 0679722580
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Date Published: July 1989
Edition: Reprint
An elegant figure with a real background as a private eye, Hammett pioneered hard-boiled fiction with his plain-spoken dialogue and classic characters such as Sam Spade, Nick Charles, and the Continental Op. Opening the door for a slew of imitators, Hammett left an indelible mark with a relatively short body of work.
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.
These tales show Hammett writing with the precision of a diamond cutter. -- Newsweek