Customer Reviews

The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest (Everyman's Library)

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Dashiell Hammett is best known as the man who wrote "Maltese Falcon," the classic noir mystery behind the classic noir film. That book is included here, along with the confusing "Red Harvest" and magnificent, polished "Thin Man," two other crime novels by Hammett.

The mysterious "Maltese Falcon" is at the center of international intrigue -- and murder. Cynical Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are hired by a beautiful, seemingly helpless woman to find a man who she says has run off with her sister. Not only is the woman lying, but someone kills Archer. A slimy fop, a cultured gangster, and a breathy femme fatale are all in the same web of crime and murder, centered on a bejewelled bird called the Maltese Falcon.

"Red Harvest" is the full-length novel introduction of the cool-as-ice Continental Op. He travels to Personville (or "Poisonville," depending on your accent) to meet a client. Except the client has just been murdered. Rather than go home to San Francisco, the Continental Op meets the dead man's wealthy father, and begins a one-man battle against the vicious gangsters who control Personville. But the death and mayhem draw him in, threatening his life as he struggles to stay afloat.

"The Thin Man" was Hammett's last and lightest novel. Nick and Nora Charles are a wealthy couple who have a weird kind of compatibility, but ex-private-eye Nick is through with crime solving. Or so he thinks. One day when Nick is out drinking, he encounters young Dorothy Wynant, daughter of peculiar inventor Clyde Wynant. Her dad has vanished, and soon his secretary/mistress is found dead. Nick finds himself sucked unwillingly into a sordid, messy crime that will leave more murdered bodies behind it.

This collection shows the unevenness of Hammett's writing at times. "Maltese Falcon" and "Thin Man" are complicated and polished, while "Red Harvest" is a dense mass of shootings, conspiracies and mysterious crimes. What they all have in common is tense, sparse writing, and hardened, cynical anti-heroes who are surrounded by other ambiguous characters.

The three-pack of "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man," and "Red Harvest" is a good way to introduce yourself to Hammett's gritty, engrossing crime novels. Highly recommended.

The Maltese Falcon is a masterpiece. I love Red Harvest as well. The Thin Man isn't quite as good, but it's a lot of fun. All in all, reading this collection is a great way to spend a rainy weekend as I discovered.

As books go, this one is quite attractive, especially without the dust jacket. It is printed and bound in Germany. This book contains three of Hammett's most famous novels, and is therefore a better bargain than buying them individually.

The Library of America also publishes a Dashiell Hammett collection that contains five novels, and is therefore more expensive. However, it is still a better bargain than buying them individually, and it is printed in the United States. It too is a very handsome edition.

If you are a Hammett fan, go with the Library of America and you will get more bang for your buck.
If, like myself, you are just interested in reading a few of Hammett's more famous works, go with this version and save a few dollars.
However, I would not recommend buying the paperbacks individually, the cost is too high and the books lack the quality of these hardbound editions.

A true "Noir" classic with mid century San Francisco as a background.

Good characters, great atmosphere and a good plot.

Dashiell Hammett was born in Maryland in the last decade of the nineteenth century. He was a Pinkerton detective; joined the Communist party and was the lover of playwright Lillian Hellman. He also, and most notably, was along with James M.Cain and Raymond Chandler one of America's greatest authors of hard boiled detective fiction in the late 1920s and 1930s. Everyman has produced a handsome volume of three of the author's most famous tales. The novels are:

Red Harvest-My personal least favorite of this trio of novels. It is a wild shoot up em up novel dealing with the efforts of an anonymous middle aged detective named the Continental Op (the agency which employs him) to clean up a sleazy Cailfornia town of 40,000. The tough guy is bent on reforming the town. Before the action ends there are over 20 murders in the short novels. The book is a mess of characters who speak in a crime world argot and use profane slang. So-so!

The Thin Man stars the delightful Nick Charles and his wisecracking wife Nora. The pair were incarnated in a series of memorable MGM films starring William Powell and Myrna Low as the booze loving married couple with a dog named Asta. In "The Thin Man" Charles seeks to discover the whereabouts of an inventor whose girl friend turns up dead. Along the way we meet the eccentric members of the Wyngard family. The action occurs in New York City and is filled with colorful Damon Runyonesque types as well as wealthy New Yorkers. The plot is incredibly complicated! What keeps this book alive eighty years after it was published is the witty way in which the tale is told.

The Maltese Falcon-I consider this to be the best of the three novels in this collection! Everyone knows the novel was turned into a classic film noir film directed by John Huston (in his directorial debut) and starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade and Mary Astor as Miss O'Shaugnessy. The plot centers around a missiing Maltese Falcon which Mr. Gutman, Joel Cairo and others are seeking to discover. Murder quickly ensues in this tale of gritty greed and betrayal. This is one of the best private investigator novels ever written. The movie closely follows the language and plot of the book.
Hammett created two of the greatest detectives in fiction in Sam Spade and Nick Charles. His books have become classics and are well worth reading.

My two favorites in this collection are The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon. I love these hard-boiled detective novels doubly for their sheer entertainment and their place in history. If you want a fascinating read to go allong with this collection, get The Perfect Murder: A Study In Detection by David Lehman. It will clue you into these novels and life. These classic American Novels by Hammett are about to explode in historical research as these novels create an important link in America from WWII to our morality.