Although this is simply a print treatment of the original script write up for the Thin Man sequels (After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man), they are presented with fascinating background details, historical information, and inside bits on what was going on behind the scenes.Each of the two stor...
Funny, clever, snarky. And complicated mysteries at the heart of both these screenplays. RETURN OF THE THIN MAN and ANOTHER THIN MAN. I was hoping to count them as two books, but they are not.In RETURN, Nick and Nora return to San Francisco and get embroiled in a family mystery. It's so funny how...
(Since the beginning of 2008 I've been writing an ongoing series of essays here that I call the "CCLaP 100," whereby I read for the first time a hundred books considered by many to be classics, and then write reports here on whether or not I think they deserve this label. For the complete list of...
Book Circle Reads 36Rating: 3.5* of five, because I love the movie more The Publisher Says: Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of H...
I often get asked why, as someone who appears to be politically switched on, I try and avoid the news media as much as possible. Well, the thing is, the truth of the world is too much for me these days. I can’t take it. Call it cowardice if you like, but I hate feeling angry or upset all the time...
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett, father of the modern crime novel, is not only an action-filled tale of misdeeds and murder, but a study of 1920s American culture and society. Within the novel’s pages, here is a sampling of what a reader will find:First-Person Hardboiled NarratorThe unnamed C...
I read this as a follow-up to reading The Continental Op, which I enjoyed very much. This volume includes eight more stories featuring the Op, as well as an unfinished novel, Tulip. The Op's stories were great, as I expected. I thought that with some of these stories, Hammett seemed to be play...
So, I'm not going to say, "wow, this is the greatest noir novel I've ever read." It is written by the father of Noir - Dashiell Hammett (Mr Maltese Falcon, and Mr. Thin Man). It was a little difficult to get into it seemed to not want to commit to a story line at first and I was somewhat disappoi...
I actually had never heard of this "novel" until I saw it at the library while contemplating whether or not to grab "The Big Knockover". A tiny little book with the words "A Novel" on the cover. I am pretty sure there is no way this qualifies as a novel. It is about 76 pages which makes it someth...
It was a necessary train ride, off the eastcoast grid to the center of the rust belt. It was a necessary six hours, even before whistle-stops and unexplained lulls were counted in. After a high-proof holiday and a few sleepless celebrations, the ride back to college was generally comfortable and...
But the gang warfare in Illinois, the big mail-truck holdup in Jersey found bandits using airplanes, bombs and machine guns. And now Mr. Hammett pictures a daring action that is almost stunning in its scope and effectiveness—yet can anyone be sure that it isn’t likely to occur? ...
The Continental Op: The Complete Case Files is the first electronic publication of Dashiell Hammett’s collected Continental Op stories to be licensed by either Hammett or his estate—and the first English-language volume of any kind to include all twenty-eight of the Op’s standalone stories. But, ...
He has created one of the most convincing and realistic characters in all detective fiction. The story, herewith, is one of his best to date. We know you’ll enjoy it to the last word. I “I haven’t anything very exciting to offer you this time,” Vance Richmond said as we sh...
Hammett’s nameless detective a year or so of work. But solving a mystery in that length of time didn’t appeal to him. He wanted faster action—and he got it in good measure. So will you if you begin this entertaining novelette. I “Do you know … Emil Bonfils?” &n...
Hammett’s “Shrewd, canny sleuth,” his “hard-boiled detective,” etc., that we’re at the end of our rope for words to introduce him to new readers. … Well, he is a shrewd, canny, hard-boiled sleuth, and this is an exciting tale. I It started in Boston, back in 1917. I ran in...
Mr. Hammett tells us of the strange series of events which led an American youth to seek kingship in “the Powder Magazine of Europe”—the Balkans. The consequences were—to put it mildly—exciting. I“YES”—AND “NO” The train from Belgrade set me down in...
Ever since I remember he was swell to me and I guess I would have liked him just as much even if he had been just somebody else instead of my brother; but I was glad he was not just somebody else. He was not like me. He was slim and would have looked swell in any kind of clothes you put on him, o...
When Cody refused his demand for more money, Hammett quit the magazine, and in March 1926 he took a job as advertising manager at Albert S. Samuels Jewelry Store in San Francisco, “the House of Lucky Wedding Rings.” The pay was $350 per month (about $55,000 per year in 2015 dollars), double his m...