The Giant Collection Of The Continental Op Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of The Giant Collection Of The Continental Op book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
The Giant Collection of the Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
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).
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.
The Big Book of the Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
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.
From ‘The Big Knockover‘ to the beginnings of the Poisonville stories, 1927 was a very important year for Dashiell Hammett and the Continental Op. The Big Knockover was followed by the sequel $106,000 Blood Money. These two stories paved the way for Hammett’s exploration of longer stories that led to novels. At the end of the year Hammett wrote The Cleansing of Poisonville and Crime Wanted – Male or Female. These two novelettes became the first two parts of his novel Red Harvest published in 1929. The Big Knock-Over Before they actually do it, one is inclined to say it isn’t done. But the gang warfare in Illinois, the big mail-truck holdup in Jersey found bandits using airplanes, bombs and machine guns. And now Mr. Hammett pictures a daring action that is almost stunning in its scope and effectiveness—yet can anyone be sure that it isn’t likely to occur? A fifteen chapter novella. $106,000 Blood Money THE BIG KNOCK-OVER told of the looting of two banks by a large band of crooks gathered from all parts of the country for that purpose. Following the successful getaway with the plunder, a number of well-known members of the underworld of various cities are found murdered. These men were seen before the holdup and were suspected leaders of small groups participating in it. It becomes evident that the division of spoils is to be made among a few rather than between many. Murder succeeds murder, as the Continental detective narrows his search for the unknown head of the huge plot. In the end he finds him, only to let him escape, as the price of his own life, without knowing him to be the man he was after. $106,000 BLOOD MONEY is a sequel to THE BIG KNOCK-OVER. A twelve chapter novella. The Main Death A curious tangle of a robbery, a mysterious killing and jealousy. The Cleansing of Poisonville In recent years there have been too many examples where civic politics has degenerated into a business for profit. This story is the first, complete, episode in a series dealing with a city whose administrators have gone mad with power and lust of wealth. It is, also, to our minds, the ideal detective story—the new type of detective fiction which Black Mask is seeking to develop. You go along with the detective, meeting action with him, watching the development as the plot is unfolded, finding the clues as he finds them; and you have the feeling that you are living through the tense, exciting scenes rather than just reading a story. Poisonville is written by a master of his craft. A fourteen chapter novelette Crime Wanted— Male or Female The grim adventures of the Continental detective in The Cleansing of Poisonville. An eleven chapter novelette.
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.
Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to physical pain, Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. He is also the hero of most of the nine stories in this volume. The Op's one enthusiasm is doing his job, and in The Big Knockover the jobs entail taking on a gang of modern-day freebooters, a vice-ridden hell's acre in the Arizona desert, and the bank job to end all bank jobs, along with such assorted grifters as Babe McCloor, Bluepoint Vance, Alphabet Shorty McCoy, and the Dis-and-Dat Kid.
Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
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.
Creeping Siamese and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
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.
The Main Death and This King Business by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
From the annals of Black Mask come the two-fisted adventures of the original hardboiled PI: Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op Jeffrey Main comes home from Los Angeles with $20,000 in his wallet and a target on his back. Two gunmen burst through the door, instigating a scuffle that leaves Main dead, his wife unconscious, and the money long gone. At least, that’s the way the cops tell it. The police see no other way the killers could have escaped so easily, and the case falls to the Continental Op—San Francisco’s most ruthless private detective. Behind this strange murder lurks a toxic case of greed, and the Op must risk his neck to learn who pulled the trigger. “The Main Death” is vintage Dashiell Hammett, the sort of hard-driving tale that made him a legend and made Black Mask the most respected of all the pulp magazines. Paired with “This King Business” in this captivating collection of Hammett’s later Continental Op stories, it is a fine reminder that hardboiled action never goes out of style. Praise for Dashiell Hammett “Hammett was the ace performer. . . . He did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” —Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep “Hammett was the great poet of the great American collision—personal honour and corruption, opportunity and fatality.” —James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential “Hammett is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer.” —The Boston Globe
The national bestselling author of The Marsh Madness takes rare book collector Jordan Bingham on a trip to San Francisco—home to Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled heroes—where nothing is as it seems. On a getaway to the City by the Bay, book collector Jordan Bingham becomes entangled in a mystery with more twists than Lombard Street... Jordan has been able to swing a romantic trip to San Francisco with Officer Tyler “Smiley” Dekker on one condition—she must return with a rare copy of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest for her irascible employer, Vera Van Alst. For his own part, Smiley is full of surprises. He’s a Dashiell devotee himself—excited to be in the city of Hammett’s hard-boiled heroes like Sam Spade and the Continental Op—and also announces he plans to visit his previously unmentioned estranged grandmother, who lives in an old Victorian in Pacific Heights. But the trip goes downhill fast when Jordan is pushed from a cable car and barely escapes death. And when a dark sedan tries to run the couple down, it’s clear someone’s after them—but who? Just like in Hammett’s world, nothing is quite what is seems... INCLUDES RECIPES
Corkscrew and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Pdf
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.
American crime fiction has developed into writing that has a commitment to democracy and the democratic way of life, a compassion and empathy and a style which has created a significant branch of American literature.
