Rating: 
Summary: Engaging stories, beautifully told.
Review: In my humble opinion, the key to Dashiell Hammett's greatness is found in his unique writing style. His sentences flow across the page. Their words sing out to you. Many imitators have come and gone but none have matched his smooth yet jarring prose. The Continental Op, edited by Steven Marcus, is a collection of seven short stories all featuring the title character. As you know, the Continental Op is that nameless San Francisco detective whose personal life away from the job, if indeed he has one, remains the greatest mystery of all. All the stories contained in this volume are first rate. They all drip with delicious descriptions of greed, deception and betrayal. They are all skillfully constructed to maximize suspense and reader interest. The first time around, you'll want to read slowly so as to savor each phrase, while at the same time you'll want to hurry up and get to the end to find out what happens. Read this book. You will not be disappointed. No other collection of short stories has ever packed more of a wallop.
Rating:
Summary: The Original "Man with No Name"
Review: Overweight, cynical, and rawhide tough, this nondescript, nameless operative for the Continental Detective Agency slugs and schemes his way through a series of entertaining mysteries. He's the prototype for Clint Eastwood's "man with no name," Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, and dozens of other "hard boiled" detectives. The difference between the Op and his imitators comes in Hammett's hands-on familiarity with his subject matter. Hammett worked for a time as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and he puts his knowledge of the seamier side of human nature to good use in crafting the stories about the Continental Op.The Op has no existence, no identity whatsoever, outside his job. He's not above a little "necessary brutality," and he doesn't mind "fudging the facts" to see to it that justice as he understands it is done. He has a slightly lopsided code of ethics and a totally jaundiced view of human nature, but he is dedicated to doing his job and doing it well. I only recently became a fan of the "detective story," but I have been a fan of the Continental Op for decades.
Rating:
Summary: The Original "Man with No Name"
Review: Overweight, cynical, and rawhide tough, this nondescript, nameless operative for the Continental Detective Agency slugs and schemes his way through a series of entertaining mysteries. He's the prototype for Clint Eastwood's "man with no name," Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, and dozens of other "hard boiled" detectives. The difference between the Op and his imitators comes in Hammett's hands-on familiarity with his subject matter. Hammett worked for a time as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and he puts his knowledge of the seamier side of human nature to good use in crafting the stories about the Continental Op. The Op has no existence, no identity whatsoever, outside his job. He's not above a little "necessary brutality," and he doesn't mind "fudging the facts" to see to it that justice as he understands it is done. He has a slightly lopsided code of ethics and a totally jaundiced view of human nature, but he is dedicated to doing his job and doing it well. I only recently became a fan of the "detective story," but I have been a fan of the Continental Op for decades.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good as The Thin Man - but good!
Review: So I absolutely ADORE the Thin Man movies, and liked the novel The Thin Man - so I had to read more of Hammett's work. This collection of short stories featuring the unnamed Continental Op was good beach type reading that wasn't cheesy. The stories are the traditional "hard-boiled detective meets gorgeous broad gone wrong" type - by the man who invented the genre (something I learned in the fascinating intro!) Fast-paced and well written - this a great book to take on an airplane/sit by a Las Vegas casino pool - and one that doesn't leave you with cavities or a cheese hangover. (Also - for fans of the Thin Man movie series - the last story might seem VERY familiar...) Read up!
Rating:
Summary: Not a good as The Thin Man - but good!
Review: So I absolutely ADORE the Thin Man movies, and liked the novel The Thin Man - so I had to read more of Hammett's work. This collection of short stories featuring the unnamed Continental Op was good beach type reading that wasn't cheesy. The stories are the traditional "hard-boiled detective meets gorgeous broad gone wrong" type - by the man who invented the genre (something I learned in the fascinating intro!) Fast-paced and well written - this a great book to take on an airplane/sit by a Las Vegas casino pool - and one that doesn't leave you with cavities or a cheese hangover. (Also - for fans of the Thin Man movie series - the last story might seem VERY familiar...) Read up!
Rating:
Summary: Engaging stories, beautifully told.
Review: The key to Dashiell Hammett's greatness is found in his unique writing style. His sentences flow effortlessly across the page. Many imitators have come and gone but none have matched his smooth yet jarring prose.
The Continental Op, or operative, is that nameless San Francisco detective whose personal life away from the job, if indeed he has one, remains the greatest mystery of all. Edited by Steven Marcus, this delightful book is a collection of seven short stories all of which feature the title character. Every story contained in this volume is first rate. Each drips with delicious descriptions of greed, deception and betrayal and each is skillfully constructed so as to maximize suspense. Read this book. You will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Dated
Review: This book consists of stories published between 1923 and 1930 and were assemble as a book in 1958.
I can easily understand why Dashiell Hammett was so revered as a crime/thriller writer in his day but, sadly, the stories and the language are so dated that for me,they affect the impact and enjoyment of the tale.They read like the film noir movies of the 40's and 50's with expressions such as "dames" and "slapping on the bracelets" etc.
I gave up after the first two stories as they were starting to appear amusing to me and I didn't want to spoil my memories of this particular genre.
Rating:
Summary: More Stories About the Hard-Boiled Detective
Review: This collection of stories entertains, and also educates on some of the techniques used in detective work. These stories have a common scheme: love, and money, are the roots of evil. In some of them a beautiful vamp lures a man to dishonor and death. Would this be credible nowadays? The "Introduction" starts with a short biography of Hammett. It then discusses the parable of "Flitcraft", a story that may mock the philosophy of Charles S. Pierce. The editor notes Hammett's notion of organized criminals running society; is this only an exaggeration of Corporate America in the early 20th century? Do these events only happen in fiction? The editor claims Hammett's creative career ended when he could not handle the contradictions of his work. Wasn't it due to his drinking, partying, and womanizing that kept him away from writing? Could his fame have prevented him from renewed contacts with Agency detectives and their stories? With the money flooding in he became "Nick Charles" and no longer "Sam Spade"
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Fun
Review: This is the first Dashiell Hammett book I've read. It's actually a collection of short stories revolving around the exploits of the Continental Op, a nameless private dick who works for the Continental Detective Agency. The Op is a hard-nosed, intelligent guy who always cracks his cases, along with a few heads. Hammett originally wrote these as serials for magazines way back in the 1920's. That was one of the things that surprised me about these stories. I couldn't believe they were written so long ago. The edginess and violence seems much more modern. These stories could easily have been written around the time that Raymond Chandler was banging out his Marlowe stories (during the 1950's). You cannot help but like the Op. He's sarcastic and smart and operates on his own code of justice. He's the kind of guy you would want to have around if you were in trouble. All of the stories are good, but some are better than others. The best story, in my humble opinion, concerned a jewel heist gone bad in which the Op ends up in a gun battle in a dark apartment. The bodies stack up quickly in this one. Other stories involve a trip to Mexico, nine "clews" that don't add up, and a theft that the Op accidentally stumbles upon. All of the stories involve murder and mayhem. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the stories would end while I was reading them, but Hammett always seems to make it end in an unexpected way. The writing style is quick and cool, with many neat metaphors I've come to expect from noir writings. The introduction to this collection is pretty useless and boring. I recommended skipping it and going right to the meat. This is noir. Who needs an introduction? Read!
Rating:
Summary: The best that Hammett ever wrote
Review: While in graduate school at Yale, I actually went to the Beinecke Rare Book Library and read several special issues of BLACK MASK MAGAZINE published in the late 1940s that collected all of the Continental Op stories not included in THE CONTINENTAL OP or THE BIG KNOCKOVER. Most readers of Hammett are unaware that over the course of his career he wrote a vast number of stories featuring the overweight, verging on middle age detective who stars in this collection. One of the great tragedies in American literary history has been the failure to publish all of these stories. Having read all of them, I can attest that while on the whole not all of the out-of-print stories are as good as the ones in THE CONTINENTAL OP and THE BIG KNOCKOVER, several of them are quite excellent. My understanding is that after Hammett's death, Lilian Hellman, who had a low opinion of Hammett's detective fiction (jealousy? spite?) and held the copyright to his works, would not allow any of the works not already well-established in publishing to be published. I am not certain who holds the copyright now, but fairly soon it should be all in the public domain, and hopefully then these important stories will all be reprinted. The Continental Op is Hammett's main detective, not the more famous Sam Spade (who appears in only one novel and a couple of short stories, as opposed to the two novels and seventy some odd short stories of the Continental OP). The stories in THE CONTINENTAL OP are the best featuring his main characters. It is impossible to stress precisely how good these stories are. The finest stories in this collection are the best things that Hammett ever wrote. Better than the two novels that Hammett wrote featuring to Op--RED HARVEST (which inspired Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, which in turn inspired A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS; the wretched LAST MAN STANDING was a more straightforward remake) and THE DAIN CURSE, better than THE GLASS KEY and THE THIN MAN, and perhaps even better than THE MALTESE FALCON. I would urge anyone interested in 20th century American Literature to read this book. Anyone who is genuinely interested in hardboiled detective fiction already has.
| 
