Books by Dashiell Hammett
“Red Harvest is one of two serialised novels featuring the Continental Op. The Op is a nameless PI who works for a Pinkerton-type agency called the Continental Detective Agency. In Red Harvest, he is brought into this town called Personville, which he calls Poisonville. There are lots of different criminal elements working there. The Op is sent to meet with the one honest person in this town—the newspaper publisher—who is then killed. Then he’s hired by the newspaper publisher’s father, the wealthiest guy in town, to find out who killed his son. He figures that out pretty quickly, but decides that’s not enough. He wants to clean up this town. He’ll do whatever it takes to flush out all the criminal activity, hitting one gang after another, manipulating them to kill each other, which is how you get the title. There are lots of deaths in Red Harvest.” Read more...
The Best 20th-Century American Detective Novels
Dave Zeltserman, Novelist
“The Modern Library named The Maltese Falcon one of the top 100 novels of the century. It was the first, and probably the greatest, hard-boiled detective novel. It pretty much invented the genre and its archetypes, including the femme fatale and the hard-drinking detective – in this case Sam Spade” Read more...
Armistead Maupin, Novelist
Interviews where books by Dashiell Hammett were recommended
The Best San Francisco Novels, recommended by Armistead Maupin
The author of the Tales of the City novel series, Armistead Maupin, tells us about San Francisco’s spirit of place, and the books that best capture the city’s sense of possibility and noirish feel. He recommends the best novels set in San Francisco.
Good Thrillers with Great Movie Adaptations, recommended by James Twining
The elements you need for a perfect thriller are a brilliant central character, some link to reality, and an inanimate object around which the human story revolves, says bestselling thriller writer James Twining. He recommends five good thrillers that have been turned into great movies.
The Best 20th-Century American Detective Novels, recommended by Dave Zeltserman
Many well-loved American detective novels feature cynical private investigator protagonists facing down hardened criminals and deep-set corruption. We asked Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes, to recommend five brilliant books from this popular genre, from a 1920s small town murder mystery to a 1980s postmodern trilogy.
