Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Dashiell Hammett books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- The Thin Man (1989)
- The Maltese Falcon (1989)
- The Big Book of the Continental Op (2017)
- The Dain Curse (1945)
- Nightmare Town: Stories (2000)
- The Glass Key (1989)
- The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels (1989)
- The Continental Op (1989)
- Woman in the Dark (1989)
- The First Cases of the Continental Op (Annotated): Five “Black Mask” Stories (2019)
- The Adventures of Sam Spade and other stories (2018)
- Detective Stories and Other Writings (2019)
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide (2019)
The Thin Man (1989)
In Dashiell Hammett’s famous crime novel, we meet one of the detective-story master’s most enchanting creations, Nick and Nora Charles, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, is a classic murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.
The Maltese Falcon (1989)
A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s iconic, influential, and beloved The Maltese Falcon.
The Big Book of the Continental Op (2017)
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.
The Dain Curse (1945)
1st Paperback Edition, Pocket Book #295, published May 1945. “Pocket Book Edition, Complete and Unabridged.” Stories 30 through 33, of 36 total, featuring the detective known only as ‘The Continental Op’. Disc: Paperback, 202 pages, 15 cm. Originally serialized in ‘Black Mask’ magazine: Part 1: “Black Lives” (November 1928); Part 2: “The Hollow Temple” (December 1928); Part 3: “Black Honeymoon” (January 1929); and Part 4: “Black Riddle” (February 1929).
Nightmare Town: Stories (2000)
"Hammett’s pioneering hard-boiled style has been much imitated, but the original–packs a wallop."–The New YorkerHere are twenty long-unavailable stories by the master who brought us . Laconic coppers, lowlifes, and mysterious women double- and triple-cross their colleagues with practiced nonchalance. A man on a bender awakens in a small town with a dark mystery at its heart. A woman confronts a brutal truth about her husband.
The Glass Key (1989)
A one-time detective and master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hardboiled crime novel. This classic work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder?
The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels (1989)
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 Continental Op (1989)
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.
Woman in the Dark (1989)
A young, frightened, foreign woman appears at the door of an isolated house. The man and woman inside take her in. Other strangers appear in pursuit of the girl. Menace is in the air.Originally published in 1933, Hammett’s shows the author at the peak of his narrative powers. With an introduction by Robert B. Parker, the author of the celebrated Spenser novels.
The First Cases of the Continental Op (Annotated): Five “Black Mask” Stories (2019)
The illustrated introduction of this book reviews briefly Dashiell Hammett as a writer and the first stories of the Continental Op, one of his most enduring creation.Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hardboiled detective novels and short stories.
The Adventures of Sam Spade and other stories (2018)
Contents: —Too many have lived —They can only hang you once —A man called Spade —The assistant murderer —Night shade —The judge laughed last —His brother’s keeper #583,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #37546 in Action & Adventure Fiction (Books) Would you like to ?If you are a seller for this product, would you like to ?
Detective Stories and Other Writings (2019)
Dashiell Hammett is the innovative master and inventor of hard-boiled fiction, an unsentimental style of American crime writing in which the isolated hero exists in a sordid world where treachery is the only norm.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide (2019)
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Best Dashiell Hammett Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some dashiell hammett books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Hard-Boiled anxiety: the Freudian desires of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and their detectives
Author(s): Karydes, Karen Huston
ID: 2708253, Publisher: Secant Publishing, LLC, Year: 2016, Size: 2 Mb, Format: epub
Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery
Author(s): Sally Cline
ID: 1685647, Publisher: Arcade Publishing, Year: 2014, Size: 1 Mb, Format: epub
The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook (The Ace Performer Collection series)
Author(s): Don Herron
ID: 488243, Publisher: , Year: 2009, Size: 6 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are truly best-sellers according to Washington Post, others are written by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.