The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels (Vintage Crime

New York: Vintage Books / Random House, Inc, 1989. Reprint. Trade Paperback. Fine. 5x1x8. Reprint. Brand new from publisher. An exceptional copy. 1989 Trade Paperback. xxiii, 451 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 (truncated) to end all bank jobs, along with such assorted grifters as Babe McCloor, Bluepoint Vance, Alphabet Shorty McCoy, and the Dis-and-Dat Kid." Includes: 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 #: 2348247)