Dashiell Hammett – författare

The last novel from the unsurpassed master of American detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man is a genre-defining mystery novel, published in Penguin Modern Classics.Ex-detective Nick Charles plans to spend a quiet Christmas holed up in a hotel suite with his glamorous wife Nora, their pet Schnauzer and a case of good Scotch. But then a bullet-riddled corpse and a missing inventor (not to mention the attentions of a beautiful young woman) force him out of retirement and back into business. Trying to make sense of false leads, suspicious alibis and mistaken identities, Nick and Nora are thrown into a world of gangsters, hoodlums and speakeasies, where no-one can be trusted. Dashiell Hammett was credited with inventing the hardboiled crime novel, and this story of murder and mayhem in Manhattan, with its breakneck plot, snappy dialogue - and the hard-drinking, wisecracking couple Nick and Nora - is one of his most thrillingly enjoyable mysteries. Dashiel Samuel Hammett (1894-1961) was born on a farm in southern Maryland, and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. He left school at the age of fourteen, and after various jobs became an operative for Pinkerton's Detective Agency. The First World War intervened, and Hammett soon turned to writing, becoming, during the 1920s, the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Thin Man (1932) and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most famous novels. If you enjoyed The Thin Man, you might like Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and Other Novels, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'The ace performer'Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep'The exuberance of language, the relish with which seediness is described ... it's a pleasure to imagine Hammett cutting loose with whatever rascally high jinks he could cook up' Margaret Atwood, author of The Blind Assassin

'When I opened my eyes and sat up in bed Nora was shaking me and a man with a gun in his hand was standing in the bedroom doorway.'Ex-detective Nick Charles attracts trouble like a magnet. He thinks his sleuthing days are over, but when Julia Wolf, a former acquaintance, is found dead, her body riddled with bullets, Nick - along with his glamorous wife, Nora - can't resist making a few enquiries. Clyde Miller Wynant, Julia's lover and boss, has disappeared. Everyone is after him, but Nick is not convinced Wynant is the murderer - and when he finds a junked-up hoodlum with a careless attitude to guns in his bedroom, it's only the beginning of his troubles.

The character Sam Spade is now the subject of a brand new TV series, MONSIEUR SPADE, starring Clive Owen.One of the greatest crime novels of the 20th century.'His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow' IndependentSam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

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.

Corruption, murder, beauty and innocence . . . 'Great crime fiction started with Hammett' James Ellroy'Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best' THE TIMESNed Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city.Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic, moral code. Ned's boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator's daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he's innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.

'Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best' THE TIMESMiss Gabriel Dain Leggett is young and wealthy, with a penchant for morphine and religious cults. She also has an unfortunate effect on the people around her. They die - violently. Is she the victim of a family curse? The short, squat, utterly unsentimental Continental Op, the best private detective around, has his doubts and finds himself confronting something infinitely more dangerous.This is the Continental Op's most bizarre case and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

'Dashiell Hammett is an original. He is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer' BOSTON GLOBEDashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. Short, squat and as stubborn as a mule, the Op's only enthusiasm was doing his job. In the stories in THE BIG KNOCKOVER, the job means solving the bank heist to end all bank heists, taking on a gang of freebooters, cleaning up a vice-ridden hell in the desert and dealing with assorted colourful grifters like the Dis-and-Dat Kid, Alphabet Shorty McCoy and Bluepoint Vance.

'Not just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the best' THE TIMESDashiell Hammett is the true inventor of modern detective fiction and the creator of the private eye, the isolated hero in a world where treachery is the norm. The Continental Op was his great first contribution to the genre and these seven stories, which first appeared in the magazine Black Mask, are the best examples of Hammett's early writing, in which his formidable literary and moral imagination is already operating at full strength. The Continental Op is the dispassionate fat man working for the Continental Detective Agency, modelled on the Pinkerton Agency, whose only interest is in doing his job in a world of violence, passion, desperate action and great excitement.

'An acknowledged literary landmark' [Robert Graves] from 'The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction' [New York Times]The Continental Op first heard Personville called Poisonville by Hickey Dewey. But since Dewey also called a shirt a shoit, he didn't think anything of it. Until he went there and his client, the only honest man in Poisonville, was murdered. Then the Op decided to stay to punish the guilty. And that meant taking on the entire town...

Introduced by Colin Dexter, one of England’s greatest writers of detective fiction, here are twenty long-unavailable stories by Dashiell Hammett, the author of The Maltese Falcon and one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town end ends up unravelling 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-edge 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.