Free Download Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man Books Online

Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

Dashiell Hammett

Hardcover | Pages: 969 pages

Rating: 4.4 | 1991 Users | 170 Reviews

Particularize Books To Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

Original Title:	Complete Novels
ISBN:	1883011671 (ISBN13: 9781883011673)
Edition Language:	English

Rendition Toward Books Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

Complete in one volume, the five books that created the modern American crime novel 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 and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op, in a raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town. In The Dain Curse (1929) the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success, a tightly constructed quest story shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931) is a further exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous. His last novel was The Thin Man (1934), a ruefully comic tale paying homage to the traditional mystery form and featuring Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies.

Define Of Books Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

Title	:	Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man
Author	:	Dashiell Hammett
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 969 pages
Published	:	1999 by Library of America (first published 1942)
Categories	:	Mystery. Fiction. Noir. Crime. Classics. Detective. Literature

Rating Of Books Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

Ratings: 4.4 From 1991 Users | 170 Reviews

Assess Of Books Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man

My only previous experience with Dashiell Hammett (apart from the classic films made from his movies) was a short story featuring The Continental Op. I was a little surprised at the amount of dry wit that was mixed among the wisecracks - some of the humor is very nuanced. I also found his style to be more streamlined and plot driven in comparison to someone like Raymond Chandler who seemed to be more about style than plot coherency. Mr. Hammett sets the scene with concise bits of description,

Red Harvest: 5 starsThe Dain Curse: 4.5 starsThe Maltese Falcon: 5 starsThe Glass Key: 4.5 starsThe Thin Man: 5 starsHighly recommended

UPDATE: I spent most of 2018 and 2019 reading Mid-20th Century North American Crime novels (about 275). I've gone back to my favorites for a 2nd, and sometimes a 3rd, reading. Why? Because after reading all 7 of Chandler's novels and The Annotated Big Sleep, most of Ross Macdonald's novels, dozens of "Hard Case" publications, much of Patricia Highsmith, Cornell Woolrich, etc., there are 2 Hammett novels that have just floored me during the third read. So here, Weakest to Best, is my new ranking:

Finished Red Harvest 05/18, the Continental Op in Personville (Poisonville), CA. 05/21 The Dain Curse Continental Op again w/scientific escaped con father, warped step mother and strangely attractive, addicted & bewildered daughter. Also a religious scam. 05/22 finished The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade is ruthless, frequently amoral and treats women like dirt, but solves crimes the police find baffling. 05/24 finished The Glass Key. Ned Beaumont also is a babe magnet as well as the deeper

I'm not sure if this was the first book I ever bought myself with my own paycheck (as a 15-year-old theater usher), but it was one of the first and is certainly the oldest one I still own. I picked it up again recently after exchanging tweets with Hannah about this piece in The Toast, and decided to reread The Dain Curse, the Hammett novel I remembered least well. In my memory it was weirder than it is -- I suspect the phony-occult aspects stood out more because they seemed so unusual to me then

Hammett is a master of the genre. I like his prose better than the other father of hardboiled crime, Raymond Chandler. It's nice, straight-to-the-point, and unadorned, though it avoids being staid or boring. There's a nice energy to it. I wasn't as impressed with The Dain Curse or The Glass Key, but Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, and The Thin Man are all excellent.

This one book collects all five of the detective novels he wrote between 1929 and 1934, during which time he pushed pulp fiction into its most conceptually pure and most literary manner. And, of course, during which time he set the templates for movies that has lasted for decades. The Maltese Falcon, of course, became a film noir classic. The Thin Man a classic of another type, the urbane, hard-drinking, wittily bantering husband-and-wife detectives. There are also two novels of the Continental