The Continental Op (Vintage Crime)

xxix, 319 pp. Edited, with an introduction, by Steven Marcus. Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to pain, Dashiell Hammett's Continetal Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. In these stories the Op unravels a murder with too many clues, looks for a girl with eyes the color of shadows on polished silver, and tangles with a crooked-eared gunman called the Whosis Kid. Includes: Introduction; The Tenth Clew; The House in Turk Street; The Girl with the Silver Eyes; The Whosis Kid; The Main Death; The Farewell Murder.