The Glass Key

ANNOTATION

One of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases as he is faced with Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett who has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they die violently.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases, and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

ANNOTATION

Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, stars in Hammett's cooly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted 2 generations of readers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, a fat man named Gutman, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book ReviewIf the locution 'hard-boiled' had not already been coined it would be necessary to coin it now to describe the characters of Dashiell Hammett's latest detective story. . . there is plenty of excitement.

–  review, February 1930

ANNOTATION

Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve crimes in between wisecracks and martinis.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Hammett did over and over what only the best writers ever do...he wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.

– Raymond Chandler

The most breathless of Hammett's stories.

– Sinclair Lewis