Wherein things that can’t happen and ought not to happen do happen...! DASHIELL HAMMETT, in The Glass Key, The Maltese Falcon, etc., set a new standard for mystery stories. In the present selection he sets up a standard of excellence in stories of the weird, the fantastic, the supernatural, the almost incredible. He has chosen from various writers an honor roll of tales that send thrills to your mind and chills to your spine — none of which has ever before appeared in book form. Mr. Hammett’s introduction presents interestingly the basis of his selections

In his spirited Introduction to a topnotch collection of Great American Detective Stories, Anthony Boucher says: “The detective short story belongs to us. It started in America and it started off magnificently. In five stories, Edgar Allan Poe created the form and almost all its possible variants... There are as many kinds of detective short stories as there are of detective novels — and you’ll find most of them here, from the ethical poetry of Melville Davisson Post to the brash foolery of Frank Gruber.” A glance at some of the titles of the stories included confirms Boucher’s modest words and guarantees that you’ll find plenty of good reading here

The Continental Op made his debut in an October 1923 issue of Black Mask, making him one of the earliest hard-boiled private detective characters to appear in the pulp magazines of the early twentieth century. Short, thick-bodied, mulishly stubborn, and indifferent to pain, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op was the prototype for generations of tough-guy detectives

One of the Continental Op\'s most bizarre cases as he is faced with Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett who has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they die violently. FROM THE PUBLISHER The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op\'s most bizarre cases, and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense

Of Hammett\'s sixth book, published in 1931, The New York Times wrote \'\'the developing relationships among the characters are as exciting as the unfolding story.\'\' FROM THE PUBLISHER Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett\'s tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel. This classic Hammet work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness

Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, stars in Hammett\'s cooly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted 2 generations of readers. FROM THE PUBLISHER A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, a fat man named Gutman, and Brigid O\'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett\'s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers. FROM THE CRITICS New York Times Book ReviewIf the locution \'hard-boiled\' had not already been coined it would be necessary to coin it now to describe the characters of Dashiell Hammett\'s latest detective story. . . there is plenty of excitement. — Books of the Century; New York Times review, February 1930

Featuring the best from the modern masters of detective, intrigue, suspense, and mystery fiction

Pulp fiction has been looked down on as a guilty pleasure, but it offers the perfect form of entertainment: the very best storytelling filled with action, surprises, sound and fury. In short, all the exhiliration of a roller-coaster ride. The 1920s in America saw the proliferation of hundreds of dubiously named but thrillingly entertaining pulp magazines in America: Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces. It was in these luridly-coloured publications, printed on the cheapest pulp paper, that the first gems began to appear. The one golden rule for writers of pulp fiction was to adhere to the art of storytelling. Each story had to have a beginning, an end, economically-etched characters, but plenty going on, both in terms of action and emotions. Pulp magazines were the TV of their day, plucking readers from drab lives and planting them firmly in thrilling make-believe, successors

Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett\'s most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve crimes in between wisecracks and martinis. FROM THE PUBLISHER Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett\'s most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING Hammett did over and over what only the best writers ever do...he wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before. — Raymond Chandler The most breathless of Hammett\'s stories. — Sinclair Lewis

Английский язык с Д. Хэмметом. Мальтийский сокол Текст адаптирован (без упрощения текста оригинала) по методу Ильи Франка: текст разбит на небольшие отрывки, каждый и который повторяется дважды: сначала идет английский текст с «подсказками» — с вкрапленным в него дословным русским переводом и лексико-грамматическим комментарием (то есть адаптированный), а затем — тот же текст, но уже неадаптированный, без подсказок. Начинающие осваивать английский язык могут при этом читать сначала отрывок текста с подсказками, а затем тот же отрывок — без подсказок. Вы как бы учитесь плавать: сначала плывете с доской, потом без доски. Совершенствующие свой английский могут поступать наоборот: читать текст без подсказок, по мере необходимости подглядывая в подсказки. Запоминание слов и выражений происходит при этом за счет их повторяемости, без зубрежки. Кроме того, читатель привыкает к логике английского языка, начинает его «чувствовать». Этот метод избавляет вас от стресса первого этапа освоения языка — от механического поиска каждого слова в словаре и от бесплодного гадания, что же все-таки значит фраза, все слова из которой вы уже нашли. Пособие способствует эффективному освоению языка, может служить дополнением к учебникам по грамматике или к основным занятиям. Предназначено для студентов, для изучающих английский язык самостоятельно, а также для всех интересующихся английской культурой. Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка: www.franklang.ru От редактора fb2. Есть два способа оформления транскрипции: UTF-LATIN и ASCII-IPA. Для корректного отображения UTF-LATIN необходимы полноценные юникодные шрифты, например, DejaVu или Arial Unicode MS. Если по каким либо причинам вас это не устраивает, то воспользуйтесь ASCII-IPA версией той же самой книги (отличается только кодированием транскрипции). Но это сопряженно с небольшими трудностями восприятия на начальном этапе. Более подробно об ASCII-IPA читайте в Интернете: http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirshenbaum