Overview
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author widely recognized as the trailblazer of hard-boiled detective fiction with his unsentimental, breakneck storytelling chock-full of fast-paced, slangy dialogue and abrupt, explosive violence. Following hot on the heels of his 1929 debut novel Red Harvest, Hammett published his sophomore shoot-'em-up The Dain Curse that same year, wherein his Continental Op is on the bizarre case of a San Francisco diamond heist that stinks of an inside job and whose prime suspect is Gabrielle Dain-Leggett: a young, wealthy socialite with a taste for morphine and religious cults, believed to be suffering from the curse of the mad Dains, and who has a tragic effect on everyone around her - they die violently.
Full Product Details
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Publisher: Heathen Editions
Imprint: Heathen Editions
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.304kg
ISBN: 9781948316323
ISBN 10: 1948316323
Pages: 258
Publication Date: 19 July 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.
Reviews
""Hammett's hard-boiled little 'op' is back on the job."" -Sacramento Union ""Employing the same methods as in Red Harvest . . . The Dain Curse will be no disappointment to those who enjoyed Mr. Hammett's former book."" -The Bookman ""As far superior to his previous effort that it should not be put in the same class. The Dain Curse is an exceedingly complicated story, but is at the same time a topnotcher."" -The Mansfield News ""Hammett's prose retains such effortless bite and snap."" -Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times ""You can journey far before you will find more murders within one cover than in The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett . . . And yet, it is quite impossible to lay the book down until the last man has been shot."" -Witchita Daily Times ""A fearfully exciting story . . . bursting with character and incident."" -Everyman ""An extremely good detective story of the sensational type."" -Sunday Express ""Some time during the years from 1927 through 1930 Hammett reached his peak - I personally think with The Dain Curse - both as a stylist and as a contributor to the tradition of the American literary hard-boiled hero."" -David Madden, Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties ""Everything in these stories moves like an express train, with bodies cluttering up the roads."" -Richard Wald, Chicago Tribune Book World ""The talk is tough and to the point, the action is hard and fast, and the telling is swift and sure."" -Oxford Times
