Dashiell Hammett

"In a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel. The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929), a raucous and nightmarish evocation...

This volume contains five of Hammett's novels, four of which were transformed into motion pictures. His stories of unmatched suspense are exciting and well plotted and portray the corruptions in American society and the undercurrent of violence that runs through American life. ISBN 0-394-43860-4 : $19.95.

An anthology of eighteen short stories includes a number of previously unpublished pieces as well as early screen treatments for "On the Make" and "The Kiss-Off."

Sara and Kurt Muller and their three children are returning to her mother's home in Washington D.C. after 18 years in Europe. A Romanian Count living there discovers Kurt's attache case full of money. He also finds out from friends at the German Embassy that Kurt is working with an anti-Nazi underground group in Germany. He tries to blackmail Kurt. Kurt shoots him and must flee. When Sara hears no more of Kurt, she knows that her oldest son Joshua...

A compilation of works by one of the most popular writers of American, hard-boiled crime fiction features the tough, antihero detective, the Continental Op, who narrates four linked stories and the novel, "The Dain Curse."

A gallery of high-living lowlifes will stop at nothing to get their sweaty hands on a jewel-encrusted falcon. Detective Sam Spade wants to find out why, and who'll take the fall for his partner's murder.

Bogart plays Sam Spade, the detective in search of the man who killed his partner.