Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op first appeared in October 1923 in a short story called 'Arson Plus', published in the popular pulp magazine Black Mask. Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to pain, the Op was the model for generations of tough-guy detectives. Over the next decade the Op continued doing the work he loved- catching crooks.
"Hammett was spare, hard-boiled, but he did over and over what only the best writers can ever do.
He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before." -Raymond Chandler
Send Mail