Nightmare Town: Stories

For those looking for more Dashiell Hammett short stories, Nightmare Town Stories is the best resource after you have read The Continental Op and The Big Knockover. Those two collections, baring "Tulip" and "Corkscrew" contain the best of Hammett's many short stories.The stories assembled for Nightmare Town Stories are not up to Hammett's best, but they do offer - more Hammett. Of principle interest is "Who Killed Bob Teal", first copyrighted in 1924, it appeared in "True Detective Stories" and after much dressing up, it was later to become the outline for The Maltese Falcon. Compared to it's final fully developed form "Bob Teal's" sparse fifteen pages offer a glimpse into the Maltese Falcon's conception. This story utilizes Hammett's oft repeated concept that what happened (the mystery) could only have been - what could have happened.Also of interest are three Sam Spade short storys and the first draft of the Thin Man, plus fifteen additional short stories. Although the stories of Nightmare Town are not up to Hammett's best they are still Hammett and as such offer his style and are thus often more rewarding than anything else available.bearclawthedonut

and great writer of who done it's. Every work of his is a master piece.Every story takes me back to the 20s and 30s. Not to be over lookedby new readers of mysteries.

This book contains stories written during different phases of Hammett's literary career. They mostly belong to the hardboiled genre, but their distict styles make it the most 'representative' book by Hammett. You will find Continetal Op stories here, as well as those involving amateurs. You will find grim action-packed stories, ands there are a few poignant few. There is an extremely intriguing draft of "The Thin Man", which, I am sure, has been tempting numerous mystery writers to take up for 'completion' keeping Hammett's style intact. Most of the stories are terrific, and even the weaker ones are readable (an astounding feat for someone who kept writing only for commercial reasons!). Hence, recommended.

The story Nightmare Town is worth it alone.Better , in it's own way, than Red Harvest. one wonders if the plot was ever based on a real occurrence...

Pleased With My Purchase. Thanks.

I love this book!

a great selection of short stories

This review is for the Kindle Edition. Mr. Hammett's stories are of course a pleasure to read, but this ebook edition is terrible. It was probably scanned with OCR software, which means there are occasional TERRIBLE typos. It is very jarring and sometimes impossible to tell what the word was supposed to me. This is a book of short stories, and there is no Table of Contents or Index. No way to move through the book of short stories except one page at a time. To be clear, there is no division between the stories, it is one long chapter. Even novels have chapter divisions in an ebook. The editor of this ebook should be ashamed.

Some of the short stories are good. I bought this from Amazon On reading this book ,just over one third of the way through there are several pages that are upside down making it difficult to follow story lines. Too late to return.

Great, the best tough guy, private eye author of them all. Under appreciated do doubt due to his life long membership of the American Communist party. He remains a Red who should be read.

This is one of my favorite books of short stories, very powerful and fascinating stories. I also gave it also as a gift.

I'd read everything Chandler has written, and most of Hammett, but ALL of these stories by Hammett were new to me! Lots to go back to and re-read, too; for an old compulsive like me :)

I'd never seen any of these shorts before, and all were so good.The Ruffian's Wife was exceptional--particularly for a male author, particularly at that time. Remarkable insights.