Authors > Dashiell Hammett

1894-1961. Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author, credited for making popular the hardboiled detective genre.

Hammett used his first hand knowledge of the detective buisness to create complex and exciting plots and memorable and believable characters. He worked for the famed Pinkerton detective agency until tuburculosis forced him to find a less taxing form of work. His most famous novel, The Maltese Falcon, introduced Sam Spade, a surly, self-assured detective that defined the hard boiled character.

After a relatively short writing career of nine years, Hammett brought his works to Hollywood where a number of his characters and stories, especially Sam Spade, made the leap into immortality.

Featured Titles:

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.

Year: 1929
Genre: Action, Hardboiled

Secret Agent X-9

The Secret Agent X-9 strip was a dailies-only serial. This volume collects the complete Hammett/Raymond strips, plus the subsequent stories by Raymond and Leslie Charteris, famous himself for "The Saint" novels, as well as the Charteris stories drawn by Charles Flanders. Included are strips from January 22, 1934 through October 31, 1936.

Year: 1934
Genre: Hero Pulps

The Big Book of the Continental Op

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.

Genre: Hardboiled

The Big Knockover

This collection of short stories is worth buying just for the twenty-page introduction by Lillian Hellman, a long time friend of Hammett and the executor of his estate. She gives a unique perspective of Hammett beyond any of the biographical informati

Genre: Hardboiled

The Continental Op

The Continental Op, the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives, unravels a murder with too many clues and tangles with a crooked-eared gunman in these stories.

Genre: Hardboiled

The Dain Curse

The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases, and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

Year: 1929
Genre: Private Eye

The Glass Key

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozen's of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him?

Year: 1931
Genre: Private Eye

The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade, a slightly shop-worn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, stars in Hammett's detective fiction, a novel that has haunted several generations of readers. The Maltese Falcon is Hammett's most famous work.

Year: 1930
Genre: Hardboiled, Mystery, Private Eye

The Thin Man

Nick and Nora Charles are Dashiell Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

Year: 1933
Genre: Murder Mystery

Woman in the Dark

On a dark night a young woman seeks refuge at an isolated house. She is hurt and frightened. The man and woman who live there take her in. But their decency is utterly unequipped to deal with the Woman in the Dark, or with the designs of men who want her.

Year: 1933
Genre: Crime Fiction

 

NON-SERIES Novels

Year TitleGenres Tags
1930The Maltese FalconHardboiled, Mystery, Private EyeGRIFTER
1931The Glass KeyPrivate Eye
1933The Thin ManMurder Mystery
1933Woman in the DarkCrime Fiction
1934Secret Agent X-9Hero Pulps

 

SERIES: CONTINENTAL OP

YearSeries TitleGenres Tags
0The Big Book of the Continental OpHardboiled
0The Big KnockoverHardboiled
0The Continental OpHardboiled
19290Red HarvestAction, Hardboiled
19290The Dain CursePrivate Eye