The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett

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

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

"Dashiell Hammett
is 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 writers
can ever do. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."-Raymond
Chandler

"Hammett's prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as
sharply 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 any
time."-Ross Macdonald

"Dashiell Hammett's dialogues can be compared only with the
best in Hemingway."-Andr Gide

"Hammett is one of the best contemporary American
writers."-Gertrude Stein