Dashiell Hammett

Before Sam Spade chased the black bird in The Maltese Falcon and Nick and Nora Charles stirred their first martinis in The Thin Man, the Con…

Biographer Nathan Ward has called “The Tenth Clew” Dashiell Hammett’s “first real jewel of a story.” In it, Hammett’s nameless Continental D…

The death of a well known San Francisco doctor brings a charge of murder for his wife, but is it murder or suicide, and is she really his wi…

Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled detective is assigned by his agency to guard a stash of wedding presents on an exclusive Bay Area island. Jus…

A rural case of arson brings in the insurance companies -- and they bring in the Continental Op. Dashiell Hammett's first Continental Op sto…

A supposed family curse. Stolen diamonds. Drugs and a religious cult. The Continental Op has his hands full while again the bodies pile up a…

The Continental Detective Agency’s Op is sent on a case to Personville. The locals call their town “Poisonville,” and the Op would soon find…

Hammett's Continental Op searches for two missing young women and finds more than he bargained for. - Summary by Winston Tharp

A beautiful client, a valuable artifact, fake identities, double-crosses and dead bodies. Hard-boiled San Francisco detective Sam Spade has …