'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.
Publisher: Orion Publishing CoISBN: 9781409138075Number of pages: 288Weight: 251 gDimensions: 196 x 133 x 23 mm
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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 followSeven brilliant short stories based on the author's experience as a detectiveHe put these people down on paper as they are,and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily usedHe is master of the detective novel,yes,but also one hell of a writerThe first fully "hard-boiled" hero in American lettersHammett's prose is clean and entirely unique. His characters are as sharp and economically defined as any in American literatureGreat crime fiction started with HammettNot just the first of the tough school of crime-writing but the bestSeven brilliant short stories based on the author's experience as a detective
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