The first five Continental Op stories, written in 1923 by Dashiell Hammett and published in The Black Mask magazine.Written in first person, these are the stories of an unnamed operative for the Continental Detective Agency. The operative deals with the gamut of human crime and cruelty. Arson Plus (1923) Crooked Souls (1923) Slippery Fingers (1923) Bodies Piled Up (1923) It (1923)

The steadfast and sturdy Continental Op has been summoned to the town of Personville—known as Poisonville—a dusty mining community splintered by competing factions of gangsters and petty criminals. The Op has been hired by Donald Willsson, publisher of the local newspaper, who gave little indication about the reason for the visit. No sooner does the Op arrive, than the body count begins to climb . . . starting with his client. With this last honest citizen of Poisonville murdered, the Op decides to stay on and force a reckoning—even if that means taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.

Now for the first time ever in one volume, all twenty-eight stories and two serialized novels starring the Continental Op—one of the greatest characters in storied history of detective fiction. Dashiell Hammett is the father of modern hard-boiled detective stories. His legendary works have been lauded for almost one hundred years by fans, and his novel The Maltese Falcon was adapted into a classic film starring Humphrey Bogart. One of Dashiell Hammett's most memorable characters, the Continental Op made his debut in Black Mask magazine on October 1, 1923, narrating the first of twenty-eight stories and two novels that would change forever the face of detective fiction. The Op is a tough, wry, unglamorous gumshoe who has inspired a following that is both global and enduring. He has been published in periodicals, paperback digests, and short story collections, but until now, he has never, in all his ninety-two years, had the whole of his exploits contained in one book. The book features all twenty-eight of the original standalone Continental Op stories, the original serialized versions of Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, and previously unpublished material. This anthology of Continental Op stories is the only complete, one-volume work of its kind.

Essential tales from the files of San Francisco’s hard-bitten, prototypical PI—penned by the undisputed “master of the detective novel” (The Boston Globe). Before Dashiell Hammett introduced such iconic sleuths as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man, he put to work the most influential detective ever to scour America’s hard-boiled literary landscape. An operative of San Francisco’s Continental Detective Agency, the Continental Op was a world-weary, pragmatic, and inelegant company man—and though always nameless, he has remained as distinctive as a fingerprint. Informed by Hammett’s own work with the Pinkertons, the twenty-three stories collected here—originally published between 1923 and 1930—introduced a bracing, jaded, dry-witted realism to the genre. Written with “the precision of a diamond cutter,” they are seminal masterworks in the legacy of a genuine original (Newsweek).

"Arson Plus" is the story that introduced the world to the Continental Op, the nameless detective whom Dashiell Hammett described as "a little man going forward day after day through mud and blood and death and deceit-as callous and brutal and cynical as necessary" (William F. Nolan, Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook). Born in the pages of Black Mask in 1923, the Continental Op is ageless, a hardworking hero as much for our time as he is for his own. Rediscover the early stories of the original hardboiled detective in the first volume of the Collected Case Files of the Continental Op, featuring "Arson Plus," "Slippery Fingers," and "Crooked Souls."

When eight diamonds are stolen from a prominent San Francisco family, the Continental Op is called in to investigate. But the missing jewels aren’t the only thing out of the ordinary. The man who reported the burglary ends up dead, ostensibly a suicide. His daughter, one of the suspects, Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett, has a penchant for morphine and religious cults. She also has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying. Might Gabrielle be the victim of an arcane family curse? Or is the truth about her stranger and even more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op’s most bizarre cases and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

In a tip of the hat to Sherlock Holmes, the Continental Op finds nine seemingly innocuous and unconnected items left as clues in a murder case. But this is San Francisco, not London, and the Op knows that the only thing he needs to crack a case is his own gut. HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.