The Big Knockover

Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. Short, squat and as stubborn as a mule, the Op's only enthusiasm was doing his job and, in the stories in THE BIG KNOCKOVER, the job means solving the bank heist to end all bank heists, taking on a gang of freebooters, cleaning up a vice-ridden hell in the desert and dealing with assorted colourful grifters like the Dis-and-Dat Kid, Alphabet Shorty McCoy and Bluepoint Vance.

“His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow”

INDEPENDENT
He is master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer BOSTON GLOBE
The first fully "hard-boiled" hero in American letters NEW YORKER
Hammett's prose is clean and entirely unique. His characters are as sharp and economically defined as any in American literature NEW YORK TIMES
He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used -- Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammett's crime thriller and its hard-boiled hero Sam Spade influenced everyone from Chandler to Le Carré GUARDIAN

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was born in Maryland and worked in a number of menial jobs until he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His experiences as a private detective laid the foundations for his writing career. His work includes RED HARVEST, THE MALTESE FALCON, THE GLASS KEY, THE THIN MAN and some eighty short stories, mostly published in Black Mask magazine.

Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. Short, squat and as stubborn as a mule, the Op's only enthusiasm was doing his job and, in the stories in THE BIG KNOCKOVER, the job means solving the bank heist to end all bank heists, taking on a gang of freebooters, cleaning up a vice-ridden hell in the desert and dealing with assorted colourful grifters like the Dis-and-Dat Kid, Alphabet Shorty McCoy and Bluepoint Vance.

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