The Main Death

Dashiell Hammett's legendary Continental Op returns in some of the hardest-hitting cases ever to come out of Black Mask. This fourth volume in the authorized Black Mask Library gathers the explosive novella pair "The Big Knock-Over" and "$106,000 Blood Money," along with "The Main Death" and "Red Harvest," the Op's first novel-length rampage through a city gone bad. Here is Hammett at full power: lean, unsentimental prose; intricate schemes that spiral into violence; and a nameless operative whose only compass is his own rough sense of justice. Featuring an all-new introduction by pulp historian Bob Byrne, The Main Death: The Complete Black Mask Cases of the Continental Op, Volume 4 is an essential collection for anyone who wants to see how hard-boiled crime fiction was built-one brutal, brilliant case at a time.