Showing results by author "Dashiell Hammett" in All Categories

Tough, cynical PI Sam Spade is hired by the story's irresistible femme fatale, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, to locate the client's sister by tailing her companion. Spade's partner, Miles Archer, takes on the assignment, and quickly both he and the man he was shadowing are murdered. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters - all of them after a legendary statuette of a falcon fashioned long ago for King Charles of Spain.

When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant 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. From the author of The Maltese Falcon.

Dashiell Hammett was a crime writer who elevated the genre to true literature, and The Thin Man was Hammett’s last - and most successful - novel. Following the enormous success of The Thin Man movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full-length novellas for the films that became After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man.

The "Adventures of Sam Spade Collection" brings together the most captivating episodes from this classic radio series. Experience the intrigue and suspense of Sam Spade's detective work as he solves crimes and unravels mysteries. This collection is perfect for fans of noir and detective fiction, offering hours of thrilling entertainment. Relive the golden age of radio with these timeless tales of mystery and intrigue.

The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases, and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

Steely. Seasoned. Smart-alecky. The storied San Francisco snooper is back! Share the exciting exploits of Dashiell Hammett's famous gumshoe through this thrilling 6-hour collection. Featuring all of the episodes from both our Volume One and Volume Two collections, Howard Duff and Steve Dunne star as Sam Spade in 12 madcap capers from 1946 - 1951. As crass as he is charismatic, this dynamic detective attracts a curious clientele - gentlemen who tend to drop dead and ladies who are drop-dead gorgeous.

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length treatments On the Make and The Kiss-Off, this collection includes never before and rarely published stories that explore failed romance, courage in the face of uncertainty, hypocrisy, and crass opportunism.

In the1930s and '40s, Black Mask was the single most important magazine for the modern mystery field. Here writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Earl Stanley Gardner reshaped the established view of mystery fiction, creating the "hard-boiled" private eye. Now this series resurrects from those pages the toughest of tough detectives in sonic dramatizations from the award-winning Hollywood Theater of the Ear.

Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade is hired to locate a client's sister by tailing the sister's companion. Spade's partner Miles Archer takes on the assignment, and quickly both Archer and the man he was shadowing are murdered. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters, and they are all after a legendary statuette of a falcon that had long ago been made for King Charles of Spain. Encrusted with jewels, it is worth a fortune.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

No bigger fad swept across postwar radio than that of the hard-boiled private detective - and nobody had more fun with their wink-and-nudge take on the genre than the producers, writers, and cast of The Adventures of Sam Spade. Dashiell Hammett's legendary private eye had a sardonic sense of humor, which wavy-haired, rugged-voiced Howard Duff played to perfection.

After The Thin Man combines crime, kisses and cocktails in the second "Thin Man" adventure! Here is the classic "Lux Radio Theater" performance of the 1936 movie hit "After The Thin Man", recreated in 1940, as a 60 minute radio adaptation with the original film stars! This Audio Archive "Feature Presentation" delivers William Powell and Myrna Loy who reprise their original roles as newly retired detective Nick Charles, and his beautiful (and wealthy) bride Nora.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

An intriguing ingenious tale of intrigue and robbery in a remote California island.

This Audio Archive presentation of The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective, contains two complete, 30 minute,Sam Spade radio shows. Each episode is introduced by old radio aficionado and collector Bill Mills, who shares interesting behind-the-scenes anecdotes and informative facts about the program and its stars.

In The Best Cases of The Continental Op, an original compilation of eight stories from Skyboat Media, the Op walks, stalks, and runs down the steep streets of San Francisco to solve crimes of blackmail, murder, stolen identities, and arson, and each story contains so many twists and turns you’ll be hooked until the very (surprising) end....

J. Scott Smart stars as "The Fat Man", Brad Runyon, the stout-but-stalwart investigator who was first conceived as an arch villain in Hammett's classic novel The Maltese Falcon. Charismatic and captivating, Runyon has a way with the ladies, in spite of his 237 pounds. Nick Charles, "The Thin Man", was played on radio by William Powell, Les Damon, and Les Tremayne. Cases seem to fall in to Nick's lap...often dropped there by his wife, Nora (played by Myrna Loy and Claudia Morgan).

Selected Shorts is an award-winning, one-hour program featuring readings of classic and new short fiction, recorded live at New York's Symphony Space. One of the most popular series on the airwaves, this unique show is hosted by Isaiah Sheffer and produced for radio by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.

With its razor-sharp dialogue, brutal realism, and dark wit, Red Harvest established Hammett as a pioneer of noir fiction, cementing his legacy as the godfather of the genre. This is a relentless tale of moral ambiguity and violence, where every character walks the thin line between survival and self-destruction.

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett’s tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett invented the noir crime novel.