Collected Stories, Volume 3: 1925-1929: Edited by S. T. Joshi

Dashiell Hammett’s stories of the later 1920s include some of his most expansive and action-packed hard-boiled crime stories, including “The Gutting of Couffignal,” “Creeping Siamese,” “The Big Knock-over,” and “$106,000 Blood Money.” Most of these tales involve the nameless Continental Op, but others introduce new detectives: Robin Thin in “The Nails in Mr. Cayterer” and Alexander Rush in “The Assistant Murderer.” And the Continental Op himself becomes enmeshed in a curious case of overseas political intrigue in “This King Business.” A rare comic story, “The Advertising Man Writes a Love Letter,” reflects Hammett’s own work in the advertising field, while another rare and recently discovered vignette, “The Glass That Laughed,” is collected here for the first time. This volume also includes dozens of book reviews of crime and mystery books that Hammett wrote for the Saturday Review of Literature.