Nightmare Town is a collection of short pieces by Dashiell Hammett. I don't really have much left to say about Hammett, after all of these posts. He's simply a helluva writer, and if you haven't read him, it's your loss, toots. Published in 1999, this volume unearthed a load of previously uncollected stories. There are seven Continental Op stories, which is pretty much all the reason you need to grab it. Three Sam Spade shorts as well. There are also some excellent non-series stories exploring various styles, giving the lie to the notion that Hammett could only work in one mode. Then there's roughly fifty pages of the initial 1930 draft of The Thin Man, which in this version is third person and includes neither Nick nor Nora, but rather no-nonsense insurance investigator, John Guild. It's rather frustrating when the draft cuts out just as things are beginning to heat up.
Posted by M.Ace at 02:27 PM, November 12, 2004.