The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest: Introduction by Robert Polito-Fast Shipping

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The three classic novels published here in one volumeare rich with the crisp prose, subtle characters, and intricate plots that made DashiellHammett one of the most admired writers of the twentieth century.

A one-time detectiveand a master of deft understatement, Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crimenovel. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary codeof ethics, tangles with a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift atthe drop of a dime. The Thin Man introduces Hammett’s wittiest creations, Nick andNora Charles, who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. And in RedHarvest, Hammett’s anonymous tough-guy detective, the Continental Op, takes on theentire town of Poisonville in a deadly war against corruption.

“Dashiell Hammettis a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer.”—Boston Globe

”Hammett was spare, hard-boiled, but he did over and over what only the best writerscan ever do. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.”—RaymondChandler

”Hammett’s prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were assharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.”—The New York Times

”As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett was unsurpassed in his own or anytime.”—Ross Macdonald

”Dashiell Hammett’s dialogues can be compared only with thebest in Hemingway.”—André Gide

”Hammett is one of the best contemporary Americanwriters.”—Gertrude Stein