Review: Early Hammett, hard-boiled crime stories
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 20, 2013
The author of such hard-boiled classic novels as "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man," Dashiell Hammett wasn't merely a great CRIME writer; stylistically speaking he was a great writer PERIOD. And in addition to novels, he wrote a goodly number of excellent short stories, many of which are gathered here. These were written early in his career and, while not necessarily the ones for which he is most remembered or upon which his fame rests, they are still good and certainly very entertaining pulp tales.Like almost all the other Megapacks offered by Wildside, this is well worth the low price; this collection offers excellent formatting, an active TOC, original publication source and date for each story, and indention rather than spacing to distinguish paragraphs.Be aware, however that two of the 20 stories are only a paragraph long, of some brief interest with regard to Hammett's earliest efforts as a writer, but not much else. And the poem referred to consists of just one quatrain, a mere four-line ditty hardly worth mentioning. So, to describe this product more accurately and honestly, one should call it "a collection of 18 early Hammett stories with supplemental material." More significantly, this collection does NOT include a long, novelette-length story (also in the public domain, as are all the others) titled "The Assistant Murderer." That WILL, however, be found in another particularly good Wildside collection, "The Detective Megapack" (though I would have much preferred it bundled alongside the others in this Hammett set). Therefore, I would have to recommend THAT collection as well, not only for Hammett's "The Assistant Murderer," but for the numerous other stories (by other authors) it contains. Thus, for a buck apiece, you might wish to purchase TWO terrific Megapacks; this will get you a lot of Hammett, some other great crime fiction, and many hours of reading pleasure.