The Assistant Murderer

About the book

"Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons." --Raymond Chandler "As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett was unsurpassed in his own or any time... We all came out from under Hammett's black mask."" -- Ross Macdonald Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, a screenplay writer, and political activist. Among his enduring character creations are Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, the Continental Op, and P. I. Rush, introduced in this book, who is ugly, mean, focused, and "works for pay". Hammett is widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time and was called, in his obituary in The New York Times, "the dean of the...'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." This short novellette is a crime story with an intricate plot and characters, and a surprise twist at the end.