THE MALTESE FALCON: Sam Spade is hired by 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 GLASS KEY: Ned Beaumont is a TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city. Nevertheless, 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...
THE DAIN CURSE: Miss 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? Continental Op, the best private detective around, has his doubts and finds himself confronting something infinitely more dangerous...
RED HARVEST: The Continental Op first heard Personville called Poisonville but didn't think anything of it. Until he goes there and his client, the only honest man in Poisonville, is murdered. Then the Op decides to stay to punish the guilty. And that means taking on the entire town...
Author Biography
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was born in Maryland and worked in a number of menial jobs until he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His experiences as a private detective laid the foundations for his writing career.
