'An acknowledged literary landmark' [Robert Graves] from 'The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction' [New York Times]

The Continental Op first heard Personville called Poisonville by Hickey Dewey. But since Dewey also called a shirt a shoit, he didn't think anything of it. Until he went there and his client, the only honest man in Poisonville, was murdered. Then the Op decided to stay to punish the guilty. And that meant taking on the entire town...

'An acknowledged literary landmark' Robert Graves

About the Author
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was born in Maryland, left school at 14 and had several jobs - messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, timekeeper, yardman, machine operator and stevedore - 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 The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, The Glass Key, The Thin Man and some eighty short stories, mostly published in Black Mask magazine.

Reviews
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 *
Hammett's prose is clean and entirely unique. His characters are as sharp and economically defined as any in American literature * NEW YORK TIMES *
One of the foremost practitioners of the hard-boiled detective story * SCOTSMAN *
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
The first fully "hard-boiled" hero in American letters * NEW YORKER *
The dean of the school of hard-boiled fiction * NEW YORK TIMES *
...a literary classic dealing with corruption by one of the masters of crime fiction * CATHOLIC HERALD *



Book Information
ISBN 9781409138082
Author Dashiell Hammett
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 201g
Dimensions(mm) 195mm * 133mm * 17mm