The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels

New York: Random House, 1966. Book Club (BCE/BOMC). Hard Cover. Near Fine/Good. 8x6x1. Book club edition. Jacket rubbed with chips and tears. 1966 Hard Cover. xxi, 355 pp. Edited with an Introduction by Lillian Hellman. "Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to physical pain, Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives. He is also the hero of most of the nine stories in this volume. The Op's one enthusiasm is doing his job, and in The Big Knockover the jobs entail taking on a gang of modern-day freebooters, a vice-ridden hell's acre in the Arizona desert, and the bank job to end all bank (truncated) jobs, along with such assorted grifters as Babe McCloor, Bluepoint Vance, Alphabet Shorty McCoy, and the Dis-and-Dat Kid." CONTENTS: Introduction; The Gutting of Couffignal; Fly Paper; The Scorched Face; This King Business; The Gatewood Caper; Dead Yellow Women; Corkscrew; Tulip; The Big Knockover; $106000 Blood Money. (Inventory #: 2344501)