The Complete Continental Op Vol 1 (all the stories)

The nameless operative.

From the pages of Black Mask magazine came  Dashiell Hammett's nameless Continental Op. the archetypal 'fat man' unglamorous, but a tough, and hard-boiled gumshoe with a keen mind, a sharp shooting trigger finger. The tough guy from San Francisco was on the scene before  Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, or Lew Archer,  and was a huge influence on the genre.

Based on Hammett's own experience as a private eye with Pinkerton's, the Op brought in edgy realism to crime fiction, until then largely cosy crime. This series of two volume yellowbacks includes all twenty-eight Continental Op short-story adventures along with Hammett's unfinished 'Three Dimes'; and the novels Red Harvest and The Dain Curse.  A must-have for all crime fiction buffs.

This is the second of a two-volume set that collects The Continental Op series; and culled from the Complete Dashiell Hammett collection available from Chancellor Press in hardcover.