Collected Stories, Volume 2: 1924-1925: Edited by S. T. Joshi

In the stories included in this volume, Dashiell Hammett continued his pioneering efforts to make the hard-boiled detective story a distinctive genre in American literature. Such stories as “The Girl with the Silver Eyes” and “The Scorched Face” chronicle additional cases of the nameless detective, the Continental Op, as he plunges ever deeper into the criminal elements of San Francisco and elsewhere. Most of these stories appeared in the legendary magazine Black Mask. But Hammett also wrote stories of other sorts, including “Ber-Belu,” set in the Philippines, and “Ruffian’s Wife,” a crime story told from the perspective of the wife of one of the protagonists. In their totality, these stories establish Hammett as one of the most innovative writers of his era.